When you’re dating someone and you’ve long crossed the threshold of “I love you”, I believe love shouldn’t feel like a test. It shouldn’t be something you constantly measure, monitor or prove. You shouldn’t put your relationship through a series of tests just so your partner can demonstrate their love to you. Over and over again. Because at that point, I believe love should already be a given. Lately, I’ve noticed how many people, even those in long-term relationships or marriages, still put their partners through unspoken trials. Ridiculous tests. Rigid standards disguised as expectations, all meant to determine whether their partner truly loves them or not. But here’s what I keep coming back to: if you love your partner, and you trust that they love you just as deeply, why does love still need to be proven? It feels even worse when these tests are performed publicly. I’ve heard women brag about how their partners finally bought them something expensive, after being pressured into it. About how their partners booked the most extravagant restaurants or bought the grandest bouquets, not out of desire, but because a photo needed to be taken, a moment needed to be displayed. Hell, I’ve even seen partners forced to uproot their entire lives—their jobs, their routines, their sense of stability—just to move countries as proof of their devotion. At some point, it stops being about love, and starts becoming a spectacle.
Having been in enough relationships, I’ve also made my fair share of mistakes. I’ve demanded things from my past partners, and sometimes, even my current one, asking them to be in certain places with me, do certain things for the wrong reasons. Just so I could prove to others that I was loved. That I was loved more. Even when, deep down, I knew my partner wasn’t entirely comfortable. And yes, they did what I asked, but it never actually made me feel good. That was when I began to understand how important it is to treat your partner as an equal, not as someone you need to control or measure. Especially in this day and age, when so much of what we see on social media are couples performing perfectly romantic moments. Filtered, curated, and more often than not, far from real. It wasn’t until I had many honest conversations with my partner, that I learned the kind of dating style that works for us. How we’d feel love from the other, the kind of love we could and wanted to shower the other with, mostly what our emotional needs truly are. And once that understanding is in place, the constant testing simply fades away. Asking for expensive gifts as proof of affection, expecting daily check-ins on demand, or requiring nightly calls to feel secure…it all starts to feel hollow, stripped of meaning. Once we understood each other’s emotional needs, our relationship grew stronger in ways that didn’t need to be seen. We began caring less about how we were perceived from the outside, and more about how we felt when it was just the two of us. Our love grew in privacy, quietly and steadily, instead of being displayed publicly while crumbling on the inside. Because we know each other. We know the ways love is shown, not announced. I know what he needs, and he knows mine. He knows I hate nicknames. He knows how much it kills me inside, when I had to demand expensive gifts or gestures out of him. He knows I prefer dates spent alone rather than in crowded places. He knows how deeply I find solace in nature, and how he can pull me back to myself by taking me somewhere when life starts to feel too heavy. Most of all, we both know that there is nothing left to prove.
At the end of the day, love was never meant to be loud. It was never meant to be proven, displayed or shaped by the expectations of people looking in from the outside. Love lies in the quiet understanding between two people. The way they listen, the way they choose each other, even when no one is watching. There will always be noise. Social media, comparisons, opinions and the invisible standards will try to convince you that love should look a certain way, unfold within a certain timeline or be validated through grand gestures. But none of that matters if it pulls you further away from the person you’re meant to be grounded with. What matters is the love that exists between the two of you. The kind that feels safe. The kind that allows honesty, rest and growth. The kind that doesn’t demand proof, because it already knows. And when everything else gets loud, that love, the one built on understanding and not performance, is the only thing worth holding onto. Sincerely, Cherie. The Whiffler is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell The Whiffler that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Monday, 12 January 2026
Love's Not a Performance
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