When I was a kid, I thought love was easy.
You meet.
You click.
You say the right words.
You stay.
Simple. so I thought…
Then life showed up with bills, anxiety, distance, temptations, unhealed childhood stuff, and the weight of everything your parents never talked about. That is when I learned something I wish somebody had told me earlier.
Love is the one thing everybody wants.
It is also one of the hardest things to manage.
WEBSTER TALKS. REAL LIFE ANSWERS.
love
/ləv/
If you look up love in the dictionary, it sounds clean.
A strong affection for another.
An attachment based on admiration or shared experience.
Warm concern for the good of another.
That definition is neat.
The reality of LoVe is definitely not.
Real love is two people with history, habits, trauma, pride, and hope trying to share the same room without breaking each other.
Real love is you at 3 a.m. staring at the ceiling thinking, “Can I do this for the long haul” while the person you care about is sleeping right next to you.
We grew up on an illusion. Looking from the outside in. We were sold the idea that love just arrives, unpacks its bags, and stays loyal until you die. Minimal effort. Maximum feelings.
That is a lie.
Love does not just come and stay.
Love has to be maintained.
Love has to be managed.
Love has to be protected from ego, distraction, boredom, and laziness.
WHAT I LEARNED WATCHING LOVE UP CLOSE
My parents have been married for more than forty five years.
When people hear that now, they usually smile. They picture matching outfits on Sundays, anniversary dinners, hands held in public, a couple that “figured it out” a long time ago. In a world where some relationships end over a left on read text, that number sounds unreal.
What I grew up watching did not feel like a fairy tale.
There were conversations you could hear through the bedroom door, but never fully understand. There were nights when the quiet at the dinner table felt heavier than the plates. There were sacrifices that did not look romantic at all. It looked like one person biting their tongue. It looked like another person getting up early to go to a job they were tired of.
What I saw, even if I did not have language for it, was two people deciding not to quit when quitting might have been easier, cheaper, and cleaner on paper.
As a child, you do not have context for that. You just know the air in the house changed. You feel the tension and you file it away. You tell yourself, I do not want this. Or, I never want to argue like that. You do not always see the part where they choose each other again the next morning.
As a man, I can look back and name what I was seeing. It was discipline. It was a choice that repeated itself. They chose each other on days they did not like each other. They showed up anyway. They stayed in the fight when it stopped feeling cinematic.
My father often officiated weddings. I watched him stand in front of couples in rented tuxes and white dresses and give them a line that stuck with me more than the vows.
“Love gives at the expense of self. Lust takes at the expense of others.”
He said it over and over through the years. The words settled in my head long before I started dating for real. They came back to me every time I wanted to call something love just because it felt good in the moment. It is easy to say “I love you” when things line up and you get what you want. Real love is the version that shows up when there is nothing in it for you that day. When you are tired, misunderstood, and not a sole is clapping.
I did not grow up around a glossy version of love. I saw work. I saw misunderstanding. I saw sharp words followed by awkward apologies. I saw forgiveness. I saw two people trying again after long stretches where they did not seem to be on the same page.
The truth is simple.
Love in that house was not always soft. It was not always gentle. But I respect what they built. I honor the years they stacked together. I understand now that staying is not luck. It is labor. It is a decision you make when the feeling is low, not just when the feeling is high.
That is why I still believe in love. That is why I still believe in Black love in particular. I believe love is fly AF.
Not just in how it looks in photos. Spiritually. Emotionally. In the way it changes the energy of a room. Love is fly when it makes both of you better. Love is fly when you can breathe inside it and still be held to a standard.
TV, MOVIES, AND THE LOVE WE LEARNED
A lot of what we think love should feel like did not come from our parents.
It came from what we watched.
Jamie and Fancy.
Cliff and Clair.
Big Mike and Alicia.
They taught us things without calling it a lesson.
JAMIE AND FANCY
Jamie Foxx and Fancy felt like every game of chase you ever played.
You had a man who hid his insecurity behind jokes.
You had a woman who knew her value and refused to rush.
He wanted her. She stayed unimpressed until the man under the comedy showed up.
That story showed us that you can laugh with somebody and still be serious about them.
It taught you that real love often starts with tension and timing.
He had to grow into the man he pretended to be on stage.
She had to see past the act and trust the soul.
Lesson. Love will require growth from you. Charisma is not enough. At some point, you have to match your words with your character.
CLIFF AND CLAIR
Cliff and Clair Huxtable gave us the blueprint for partnership on TV.
They flirted in the kitchen.
They tag teamed the kids.
They disagreed without destroying each other.
They made marriage look like collaboration, not a prison.
You saw a Black man being playful, smart, present, and in love with his wife.
You saw a Black woman being powerful, respected, and still soft in her own way.
Lesson. Love is not only romance. It is rhythm. Two people working the same plan. Respect in public and in private. Shared leadership. Shared load.
BIG MIKE AND ALICIA
Big Mike and Alicia in The Wood are the ones you think about if you ever had a crush in middle or high school.
That nervous energy.
That awkward confidence.
That feeling of “Is this really happening”
Life moved them apart.
Life brought them back together at a different stage.
The chemistry never left.
The timing finally did what the heart always wanted.
Lesson. Love does not always run in a straight line. Sometimes it circles back when you have grown into the version of yourself that can hold it.
WHAT LOVE HAS TAUGHT ME SO FAR
Here is what I know so far. Not from quotes. From scars.
Love is not a feeling you fall into.
It is a decision you return to.
Love alone does not fix broken people.
People have to want to heal while they are loving you.
Attraction starts relationships.
Communication sustains them.
Accountability matures them.
Love has boundaries.
If you let someone do whatever they want with your heart, they will eventually treat it like it is nothing.
Love needs time.
You cannot microwave understanding.
You cannot air fry trust.
Love is a mirror.
It shows you where you are selfish.
It exposes your pride.
It reveals your sore spots.
Love is not always soft.
Sometimes it is a hard conversation that you do not want to have.
Sometimes it is them telling you the truth you are running from.
Sometimes it is you admitting that you are wrong.
Love is fly AF when it is healthy.
When you are both growing.
When the inside of the relationship is as beautiful as the pictures.
WHAT LoVe IS ABOUT
LoVe, this Substack, is my lab.
We are going to study love.
We are going to confess where we fumbled it.
We are going to talk about what it means to be a man learning how to hold love without running from it.
We are going to honor women who love with depth and deserve more than half effort.
We will look at:
Love between partners.
Love between parents and children.
Love between brothers and friends.
Love for yourself after heartbreak.
Some days will feel like a conversation between you and your homie.
Some days will read like a letter you wish somebody had sent you years ago.
Some days will be questions with no easy answer.
But the goal is simple.
To love better.
To love slower.
To love with more intention.
To love with a healed heart, not a desperate one.
INJECT MORE LOVE INTO THE CULTURE
We are flooded with content that profits from our fear of each other.
Culture keeps telling you that connection is weakness, that detachment is power, that caring less is the cheat code.
I do not believe that.
I believe in effort.
I believe in apologies that come with changed behavior.
I believe in men who show up for their kids.
I believe in women who are loved in a way that lets them rest.
I believe in friendships that feel like home.
So that is what LoVe is for.
For the ones who still want to believe.
For the ones who are tired of almost.
For the ones who want to build something real in a time where everything feels temporary.
If you are here, you are already different.
You want more from yourself.
You want more from your relationships.
You want more from this life.
So let us start here.
Let us study love.
Let us practice love.
Let us protect love when we find it.
Let us inject more love into the culture.