I am a huge hopeless romantic. All my exes can attest to that.

Universal Bar is applicable in all areas of life. I just realised now I have been in romance too.

But my question goes further.
My question is:
Would you match the universal standards for us, our legacies, humanity, our families, our enemies, our pain, our passions, for eons and possibly longer?
Because I do not see relationships as isolated experiences.
I see them as living ecosystems.
I see them as civilizations in miniature.
I see them as timelines merging.

Not because I fall in love easily.

Because when I love, I love completely.

I love with the intensity of the universe I am.

I love with curiosity.

I love with devotion.

I love with attention.

I love with planning.

I love with responsibility.

I love with vision.

I love with continuity.

I love with the same mind that studies systems, because relationships are systems too. I love with the same heart that cares about humanity, because the person I choose becomes part of my humanity. I love with the same intensity that I build businesses, write frameworks, challenge institutions, and dream about futures not yet built.

And perhaps that is why my question has always been different.

Most people ask:

“Do you love me?”

“Are you attracted to me?”

“Can we make each other happy?”

Beautiful questions.

Necessary questions.

But my question goes further.

My question is:

Would you match the universal standards for us, our legacies, humanity, our families, our enemies, our pain, our passions, for eons and possibly longer?

Because I do not see relationships as isolated experiences.

I see them as living ecosystems.

I see them as civilizations in miniature.

I see them as timelines merging.

I see them as two continuities choosing to build something neither could build alone.

That changes everything.

It means I am not only thinking about how we treat each other when life is easy.

I am thinking about how we treat each other when life is difficult.

How we handle grief.

How we handle success.

How we handle temptation.

How we handle disappointment.

How we handle responsibility.

How we handle power.

How we handle fear.

How we handle growth.

Because growth is guaranteed.

The question is whether we can continue meeting each other there.

That is why I can tend to so many things within a relationship.

I pay attention to the emotional climate.

I pay attention to the direction.

I pay attention to the unspoken concerns.

I pay attention to the dreams that have not yet become words.

I pay attention to the potential hidden beneath behaviour.

I pay attention to the wounds asking for healing.

I pay attention to the strengths asking for expression.

I pay attention to what is growing.

I pay attention to what is dying.

I pay attention to what is asking to be born.

Not because I want control.

Because I care.

Deeply.

I care about whether the person beside me is becoming more themselves.

I care about whether the relationship is becoming more itself.

I care about whether our future is becoming more itself.

I care about whether our family is becoming more itself.

I care about whether our contribution is becoming more itself.

Love, to me, has never been passive.

It has always been participatory.

I do not want a relationship where two people simply coexist.

I want a relationship where two people actively expand each other’s capacity to experience life.

Not through dependency.

Through devotion.

Not through possession.

Through stewardship.

Not through fantasy.

Through embodiment.

The funny thing is that because I am such a romantic, people often assume the romance is the point.

It is not.

The romance is the fragrance.

The relationship is the garden.

The romance is the music.

The relationship is the orchestra.

The romance is the spark.

The relationship is the fire we choose to tend for decades.

Because what I truly desire is not admiration.

It is partnership.

The type of partnership where two people can sit at the edge of an impossible dream and instead of asking whether it can be done, ask how.

The type of partnership where growth is celebrated rather than feared.

The type of partnership where honesty matters more than comfort.

The type of partnership where both people remain students of life.

The type of partnership where neither person asks the other to shrink.

The type of partnership where love becomes a force of creation.

That is why I have never been looking for someone to complete me.

I was complete before I met them.

What I am looking for is someone willing to build.

Someone willing to tend.

Someone willing to grow.

Someone willing to love at a scale that includes not only us, but what flows through us.

Because if I am being honest, I do not think my greatest love story will be defined by how intensely we looked at each other.

I think it will be defined by how intensely we looked in the same direction.

And kept choosing it.

Again.

And again.

And again.

For as long as life allows.

That is what makes me different.

I am a hopeless romantic.

But my romance was never only about love.

It was about what love can build.

..

Thinking Out Loud playing in the background. Of course ahahah