WHERE DO Hopeless Romantics GO?

Hopeless romantics exist even in today's move-on-to-the-next-person and block-from-everywhere dating culture. Parul Karn navigates their world with the help of experts

- Parul Karn

Love and passion compel poets and authors to write, turning even the most futile situations romantic. Indeed, for hopeless romantics, love is the very essence of life. They deem life incomplete if they can't find the love their hearts yearn for. They believe they were put on this earth for that specific someone.

The profusion of choices and the fast pace of life make it difficult for many of us to find that someone. Love, of the kind they write epics about, seems to have become fictional. Romantics will keep wishing upon every shooting star – if they can catch sight of one among the city lights – to fulfill this greatest longing. But, when the whole world is hell bent on never settling, where do they even start? Why can't love be the same good old love? Why can't it be like in Taylor Swift's song The way I loved you? – “But I miss screamin' and fightin' and kissin' in the rain... So in love that you act insane. And that's the way I loved you...”? Hopeless romantics today seem either one swipe away from meeting 'the one' or from getting traumatised for years.

Still, for dreamers who continue to believe in the sanctity of all-consuming love, all is not lost. Mumbai-based Nipa Asharam found love at 41. “I remember when I was in the dating phase five years ago, women around me felt that good guys didn't exist,” recalls the Founder and CEO of Eat. Breathe.Smile, a superfoods company. “It needed the guy to make just one mistake before we ended it. Most of this was done to protect oneself, so that one didn't experience hurt. I personally felt, however, that this (approach) didn't let you fully give love a chance.”