If you grew up in the 90s or early 2000s, your idea of romance was probably shaped long before you ever went on a date. It came from the big screen, from TV shows with canned laughter, and from love stories set to carefully timed background music. You didn’t just watch love happen. You absorbed it, memorised it, and, somewhere along the way, started expecting it to look and feel a certain way.
It felt harmless then. But looking back, it’s clear that pop culture did more than entertain us. It quietly set the terms.
Whether it was Bollywood or Hollywood, the message was loud and clear. Love is big, dramatic, and absolute. You don’t just meet someone. You collide. You change. You wait for them at train stations. You chase them through airports. You deliver a monologue that turns everything around.
In Hindi cinema, romance was often tied to sacrifice, family opposition, and the idea that love must conquer all, usually after at least three songs and a misunderstanding or two. It was beautiful, yes. But it also told us that love meant effort that bordered on exhaustion. You had to win someone over, prove yourself, earn it.
Hollywood, in turn, gave us broken people who found healing through love. One character always had walls up, and the other would patiently or persistently break them down. It looked noble, and it rarely addressed the emotional labour involved.
And all of it, every montage and every slow-motion glance, quietly told us that love is only real if it sweeps you off your feet.
There’s a reason these stories stay with us. They give shape to feelings we don’t always know how to articulate. They offer hope, comfort, and sometimes, a bit of escape. But they’re also curated; they skip the awkward bits, the long silences, and the miscommunications that don’t resolve in two hours.
Real relationships don’t always come with fireworks. They come with logistics, tired evenings, and conversations about who’s picking up the groceries and how to split responsibilities fairly. That doesn’t make them boring, it just makes them real.
If we keep chasing what we saw on screen, the intensity, the thrill, the constant sense of urgency, we might overlook the quieter, steadier kind of love that actually lasts.
As if movies weren’t enough, social media stepped in and made things even trickier. Now, love isn’t just something you experience, it’s something you showcase.
We’ve all seen the posts, the anniversary captions, and the trip highlights. The couple shoots where everyone is bathed in golden light. Not all of it is fake, exactly, but it’s also not the full story.
The pressure to present a picture-perfect relationship, one that is equal parts romantic, humorous, and photogenic, has made it harder to embrace the messiness of real intimacy. Conflict feels like failure, boredom feels like a red flag, and the idea of working through things quietly, without telling the internet about it, almost feels outdated.
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the stories we grew up with. They gave us language for love. They reminded us that it matters. But the healthiest relationships today are built on something a little less theatrical and a little more grounded. Real love is not just chemistry or destiny; it’s timing, maturity, communication, and emotional responsibility.
That doesn’t mean we have to let go of all the romance. You can still believe in meaningful glances and rainy-day conversations. Just know that the more powerful moments often happen off-script in the daily rhythms, in the care that doesn’t need to be dramatic to be deep.
Maybe we’re finally ready for a new kind of love story. One where the main characters are two whole people, not two incomplete halves. One where no one has to chase trains or perform grand gestures to be worthy. Just show up. Stay. Be honest.
That’s more than enough. And honestly, far more romantic.