Love is not for the weak

I grew up on love stories.

Romance films, love teams, teen fictions—they were more than just entertainment to me. They were blueprints. They taught me how to dream, how to hope, and how to believe in something bigger than myself. From Marvin and Jolina, Rico and Claudine, to KathNiel, JaDine, and LizQuen, I watched them fall in love onscreen.

But many of those stories didn’t last—not even off-screen. The couples who made us believe in forever eventually parted ways. And somehow, that broke my heart a little more than I expected when I was in my teens. It was as if the magic I held onto in my childhood was slipping through the cracks of real life.

Still, despite the quiet embarrassment I sometimes feel admitting it, I want that kind of love.

I want to know what it feels like to be loved in that way—intensely, foolishly, fully. I want the privilege of experiencing the magic of romance while I am still young. Not the cautious, calculated kind that comes with age, but the kind that’s messy, irrational, brave. The kind that makes you feel like your chest might cave in just from the weight of wanting.

People say, “You’re too young to be looking for love.” But what if they’re wrong?

What if youth is exactly when you should be looking for it?

There are emotions you only feel with the intensity of youth—not because love isn’t real later in life, but because it’s different.

It’s like going to a carnival. As a child, everything is a wonder: the lights, the noise, the thrill. When you’re older, you still go—but it doesn’t hit the same.

It’s similar when you love while you’re young; it’s raw, intense, terrifying, and pure. You love the only way you know how—with everything.

Because I believe there are feelings only youth can carry—the kind of reckless, full-bodied love that doesn’t ask for guarantees. The kind that isn’t calculated. The kind that feels first and questions later.

You love recklessly. You leap before looking. And even though it might end in a heartbreak, there’s something sacred in that kind of surrender—in allowing yourself to be moved purely by feeling, not logic.

When you get older, love becomes more technical. You assess compatibility, plans, emotional maturity, and attachment styles. You build checklists and draw boundaries, all in the name of feeling safe. And yes, those things matter. But they also make love feel more like a negotiation than a discovery.

People often say, “Love will come when you’re not looking,” or “Focus on yourself first.” And maybe that’s true. But sometimes, those words feel like a way of telling romantics to quiet down. To stop hoping. To stop needing. To stop feeling so much.

But what if wanting love deeply isn’t something to be ashamed of? What if it’s a kind of bravery?

Because love isn’t safe. It’s terrifying. It unravels you. It undoes your pride. It forces you to confront who you are when you’re stripped of pretense. It asks you to risk rejection, to give when you don’t know if it’ll be received, to stay soft in a world that constantly tells you to harden.

And that kind of vulnerability, that kind of hope, is not weak. It’s courageous.

That’s why I don’t want to miss out on loving while I’m still young. I want to know what it feels like to lose myself in someone—to let love teach me, ruin me, and rebuild me. To feel the rush of holding someone’s hand for the first time and not knowing how the story ends—only that you want it to mean something.

Because real love, the kind that changes you, isn’t safe. It’s terrifying. It unravels the stories you’ve told yourself to stay in control. It forces you to face parts of yourself you’d rather keep buried. It demands truth.

They say wanting love is easy, but receiving it? Fully, honestly? That’s the hard part. That’s where the fear comes in. Because to let yourself be loved means being seen, really seen. And that can cost more than some of us are ready to give.

That’s why people say love is awful. It undoes you. And yet, we still crave it. We still search for it. Because in a world that numbs and distracts us at every turn, love is the one thing that makes us feel truly alive.

And maybe, just maybe, the people who wrestle with love the most are the ones who understand it best. Because they don’t take it lightly. They know what’s at stake. It’s work. It’s a risk. It’s courage.

There’s something that they do not tell you about being young and romantic.

It’s not being naive.

It’s being brave.

And love is not something for the weak.

It’s something the hopeful keeps showing up for—again and again.

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Isaac Reinhart Delic, 20, a deep hopeless romantic from National University Manila. This piece was inspired by the hot priest’s speech scene in “Fleabag.”