Love is tough

For the last four years, I’ve been researching love.

How it alters our identity, shapes the choices we make without us realizing.

It’s turned my life upside down since I can remember.

From what I can tell, it’s still the most powerful and least understood force in our lives.

We like to believe we’re rational. But love governs us in ways that logic can’t touch.

And whether we admit it or not, love continues to shapes our fears and desires.

Sometimes love brings us together, creating connections that lead to places we couldn’t reach alone.

Sometimes those places are nirvana.

Sometimes they’re not.

The paths to greatness are scattered with the ruins of those who didn’t make it.

People who gave everything to the wrong bridge, the wrong dream, the wrong person.

Over the past three years, I’ve interviewed over forty people.

Each one trying to explain how love rewrote the terms of their life.

What stands out isn’t the drama or heartbreak.

It’s how subtle it was.

How love crept in and reshaped them.

I’ve focused on how identity shifts through love—how the thing we once craved becomes the thing that controls us.

How, in searching for connection, we sometimes lose the very freedom that drew us to the search in the first place.

We’re shaped by everything we see and hear, movies, sitcoms, half-truth stories from our friends.

All of it impacts how we think love should look.

Each person I spoke to revealed something that completely changed how I see love in my own life.

It defined them. Changed them. And then changed me.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll share their stories, my thoughts, and the art that has grown from it all.

Most of those I interviewed are still with us.

This series is for the ones who aren’t.

I hope you find what you’re looking for and find peace in the stories you never had the chance to tell.

Love

It’s 2022. I’ve just had my first show—New Bond Street, London. The location is an old luxury clothing store. A single changing room in the back gets transformed into a confession booth.

People walk in one by one, leaving their secrets on the walls. Love, betrayal, regret. It bleeds out in neon poster paint.

I make a rule not to enter while the show is running. Keeping the space free from my presence feels important. I can’t explain why. Maybe I’m afraid of what I’ll see.

When I take it all down, I’m struck by one question—

Why do we hide so much of what we love?

There’s something about wanting.

About finding something that actually fits into your world without breaking it.

It isn’t easy.

Not for any of us.

Love, real love, forces us to face limitations we don’t want to admit we have. Our fears, our wounds, our need to belong.

And most of the time, we just settle. We fit in where we can. The love of feeling seen—of being with someone—overrides the possibility that something truer, something real, might exist.

We’re surrounded by distortions. The glossy stories on screens, the curated perfection of social media, the clichés that keep us chasing an illusion. Love, as an emotion, is often weaponized. It’s used to control, to sell, to seduce. We become intoxicated by the promise of it.

At the show, more than 500 people enter that booth. Many guide their partners inside before themselves, trying to glimpse what gets left behind.

It’s always the ones who peek that seem to have the heaviest secrets. Infidelity. Lust. Desires they can’t admit even to themselves.

I watch as queues form, as someone exits in tears.

It’s real. In every way that art should be.

We’re most ourselves when no one is watching.

But with love, don’t we want to be seen?

Don’t we want someone to witness all of us?

Maybe not.

Maybe what we seek in love isn’t truth.

Love is subjective by nature—a feeling that resists definition. So why does truth matter?

It always comes to light.

Like diamonds under a magnifying lens. On the surface, both real and fake shine the same.

But eventually, you can’t ignore the imperfections. The cracks beneath the surface.

Something just doesn’t feel right.

Love, like the rest of us, doesn’t get away with hiding forever.

How does modern media affect love?

Media shapes our psychological experience of love by offering narratives, symbols, and role models that frame how we interpret our emotions.

From films that portray epic romance to social media posts that glorify “perfect couples,” these stories become shared cultural scripts, telling us not only what love should look like but also how we should pursue it.

In doing so, media effectively links personal feelings to larger social norms, encouraging individuals to see their connections as part of a bigger collective ideal.

Because humans are wired for social belonging, these media-driven scripts can reinforce tribal cohesion.

When large groups share the same stories of what love “should” be—devotion, sacrifice, mutual support—they also reinforce communal values.

Media narratives, in essence, become a tool for unifying behavior and expectations, ensuring that everyone within a tribe (or society) can relate to and rely on the same emotional frameworks.

This consensus can strengthen bonds and minimize social conflict by providing a common language around love.

Conversely, these media norms can narrow our perceptions, sometimes pressuring individuals to conform to romantic ideals that may not fit their realities.

Yet even this pressure serves a social function—motivating people to align with the group and thus maintain cohesion.

In modern contexts, the sheer volume of media outlets means individuals can also find counter-narratives that validate alternative expressions of love.

Ultimately, while media influences our personal experience of romance, it also ensures love remains a communal thread, weaving individual desire into the wider tapestry of tribal belonging.

Poets Corner

Love

Reckless burst of candid fire
Turn us on with secret grooves,
Hidden far from eyes so dire
Who in Verona did not approve
Kisses warm in ancient chambers,
Two souls shoved to eternal slumber.

Turn the knob that opens our heart
Free us brave into the wild.
Bring us close to a piece of land
Distance shortened in a smile.
Rocks and mountains you can move,
Being praised, of all things, above.

- Nahuel

Interview - Gabrielle in Miami

Late afternoon sunlight slants through the tall windows of a Miami warehouse, casting dusty gold rectangles across the concrete floor.

Outside, the humid air shimmers, but here, the low hum of air-conditioning fights off the heat. I can hear her echoed footsteps in the hallway—measured, resonant.

Gabrielle steps into the main room, her silhouette briefly framed by the glow of the setting sun.

She’s in her late thirties, poised yet holding a trace of tension in her shoulders, as if she’s bracing for something important.

She’s clearly beautiful, elegant, something about how she moves echoes that she’s felt this way for a while.

She pauses just inside the doorway…

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