07/30/2025
Long read, but worth it: MODERN LOVE (PART 2): The Revolution Will Not Be Polyamorously Live Streamed.
By Zen Prem
When Real Starts To Matter Again …
In my last post, I wrote about the absolute fu***ng s**tshow circus that is modern love… where , in my kids world, “situationships” pass for intimacy, spiritual cosplay gets mistaken for connection, and everyone’s so busy regulating their nervous systems they’ve forgotten how to actually relate.
But once you’ve seen through all that bu****it , once the Ta**ra theatre closes and the masks are off and the curtain comes down on the performance … what the f**k do you do next? …
That’s what this is about. What happens when love stops pretending … and starts to stay.
So you’ve woken the f**k up …
You’ve deleted Hinge. You’ve blocked your last situationship.
You’ve returned the white linen pants to the Ta**ra festival lost-and-found.
And now you’re standing in front of someone who isn’t an “energetic match” or a content collaborator, but an actual fu***ng human being … Flawed. Tender. Fu**ed up , Possibly traumatised. Definitely not curated … Now what?…
Because here’s the part they don’t tell you in the reels and retreats …
Real love begins where performance ends.
And that’s where most people check the f**k out.
It’s not hard to eye-gaze through a weekend of oxytocin-fuelled breathwork and say “I see you. What’s fu***ng hard is staying present when they break down because they think you’re going to leave like everyone else did.
What’s hard is hearing “I feel scared” and not turning it into a therapy session or a fu***ng Ted talk or another fu***ng reason to take space and “recalibrate.”
See, modern love has taught us how to attract. It hasn’t taught us how to stay.
It’s taught us how to perform intimacy.
Not how to withstand the storm of it.
We’ve got Tinder bios full of “communication, depth, alignment, emotional maturity”… but very few people actually want what those words mean when the lights go out.
Because emotional maturity isn’t s*xy.
It’s sitting in silence with someone who can’t stop crying and not needing to fix it.
It’s taking radical responsibility for your projections instead of blaming your inner child. It’s being willing to go through the fire, not around it.
It’s saying: “I’m not leaving just because this got hard. I’m not disappearing just because I saw your shadow. And I’m not pretending to be chill when I’m fu***ng scared too.”
Because at some point, we all break down.
And when we do, the question is never “Are you healed?”
It’s: “Can you stay present while I fall the f**k apart?”
That’s real love.
Not the filtered, perfect, polyvagal informed, cosmic-union fairytale.
But the raw, real, f**ked up, midnight in the kitchen kind.
You want to know what real devotion looks like?…
It’s not daily relationship check-ins and matching tattoos and a Spotify playlist called “Our Nervous Systems.” It’s not a six-month conscious coupling contract with bullet-point agreements on emotional availability.
I mean , That’s cute. That’s logistics. That’s love with a PR team.
Devotion is a s**tload messier. It’s your partner screaming “I don’t feel safe” and instead of defending yourself, you whisper: “I hear you.” ….
It’s someone losing their s**t and you reaching for their hand before reaching for a reason to run.
We call that codependency now, don’t we?
Because it’s easier to label presence as dysfunction than admit we’re terrified of being needed.
You say you want real love? …
Then get your fu***ng head around this …
You don’t get to choose someone’s light
without learning how to hold their darkness.
You don’t get the fire without the burn.
You don’t get “I love you” without “I’m scared as hell but I’m trying.”
You don’t get the wild s*x, the big love,
the soul-deep eye contact, without the mornings where neither of you can speak
and the only thing keeping you together is the memory of how hard you both fought to be here.
So here’s what I tell my kids now:
You want something real? …
Stop looking for perfection … Look for someone who can rupture and repair. Someone who can own their s**t and laugh about it later.
Someone who doesn’t need you to be healed, just fu***ng honest.
You want a partner?… Find the one who knows what to do when the performance ends.
Who doesn’t flinch at your truth.
Who still reaches for your hand even when they’re shaking too.
Because modern love is all theatre until it’s not.
And when the curtain falls, when the story stops being s*xy, when the likes go away and the trauma quotes get quiet,
what’s left is this …
Two people … Raw. Real. And just brave enough to keep showing up.
Love begins where the mask falls.
It grows where the ego surrenders.
It survives when two nervous systems learn how to dance instead of defend.
And it thrives when you no longer need to perform to be chosen.
Zen Prem
Co-author of Beyond Bulls**t to Bliss with Samantha Spiro
The Modern Love trilogy and poem is taken from my upcoming book The Lie About Love, a brutally honest, darkly funny, and emotionally unfiltered exploration of what it means to actually stay when the performance ends. Available later this year, it’s for anyone who’s tired of curated connection and ready for the raw, boring, beautiful truth of real love🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟❤️
**tToBliss
**ts
