Love Doesn’t Look Like Anxiety

Love Doesn’t Look Like Anxiety

Listen. I need you to print this out, tattoo it on your forehead, and maybe get it framed for your bedroom: If “love” makes your stomach twist in knots, keeps you guessing, sends you spiraling into imaginary scenarios on a Wednesday at 3am, IT’S NOT LOVE. It’s a hostage situation that your emotions are refusing to negotiate with.

Honestly, I wish someone had told me this in my twenties when I mistook “butterflies” for full-blown gastrointestinal distress. You know the “ping!” when his text finally comes through after you’ve been staring at your phone like it’s the last sandwich at brunch? That is not adorable anticipation, babe. That’s cortisol running a marathon through your veins. Romantic? Nope. It’s basically emotional indigestion.

Let’s call a thing a thing: if every day feels like you’re walking across a tightrope in heels hoping you don’t say the wrong thing, or if you’re constantly decoding messages like an FBI agent with zero job security… what you’re feeling is *anxiety*, not love. You don’t need someone who treats your heart like a “maybe.” You’re not auditioning for a part in their lousy rom-com.

Picture this: Real love—yes, the boring, mature, stable kind the movies somehow never make a plot out of—is actually where peace lives. Where you put your phone down and forget it exists for two hours because you know no one’s playing mind games. Where plans get made before you even have to ask because he, gasp, wants to see you and acts like it. Where you’re not mentally rehearsing every sentence so you don’t “scare him off” (PSA: if breathing too loud scares him off, let him run. Don’t chase after someone trying to escape—let him trip over his own shoelaces).

If you’re analyzing emojis in texts or researching “hidden meaning of being left on read” like you’ve got a thesis to write, it’s a problem. If you’re using “signs he might like me” BuzzFeed quizzes as spiritual guidance, girl, hang it up. Your intuition isn’t broken. You’re just ignoring it because butterflies make you feel alive, even when they’re actually tiny alarm bells in cute disguises.

Can we talk about Hollywood for a second? All those stories where love is a tornado flinging two people together in a steamy, drama-filled, should-we-or-shouldn’t-we saga? I’ll change my mind about those movies when they show the morning after, when you’re checking if he’s still following you on Instagram or suddenly his stories are full of “just the guys” nights. That’s not love—that’s just a hangover with too much emotional vodka.

I want you to have someone who feels like a soft sweatshirt after a bad day. Not a hotel towel that smells weird and leaves you itching. If peace feels boring, congratulations, you’re not used to enough of it. We confuse stable with “not passionate,” but let’s be real: Passion shouldn’t feel like a panic attack.

Here’s a little test: take a deep breath. No, really—try to relax every single muscle. Now, imagine being with him (or her, or them. This is a queer-friendly zone, babe). Does your body soften? Do you smile? Or does your jaw clench, your chest tighten, like your nervous system just hit the emergency button AGAIN?

Your body might not know poetry but it knows danger.

So, yeah. Love doesn’t look like anxiety. Love feels like exhaling. Love feels like being picked up on time, having your texts answered, being able to accidentally fart in his presence and not wanting to open a trapdoor and disappear. Love isn’t “I hope he calls.” It’s “of course he calls.”

You deserve love that doesn’t give you ulcers. You deserve to sleep. You deserve to know—not guess.

Don’t let Hollywood or TikTok or your messy friend from college convince you otherwise.