Ways in which people love

"Did you feel loved?"

When I read these words, I did not know what to think of them. Did I feel loved? I couldn't tell for sure. When was the last time that I did? I couldn't remember. What does it mean to feel loved?

As I was scrolling through Instagram, the tenth time that day, watching every reel and reading every post and caption, I came across an interview. Neena Gupta talked about love. She said she doesn't think love exists between a man and a woman. It starts with lust, develops into affection and then becomes a habit. And that made me hopeless and then made me wonder. What is love, really? Love in any relationship, not just a romantic one. And I found myself agreeing. I don't know what it starts with, might not always be lust. But it develops into affection, and later becomes a habit. To feel loved is, then, to feel habituated to someone's affection towards you. And to love is to be considerate in little ways. Ways so little that you almost don't notice them, and so they become a habit, and so they go unnoticed.

So, coming back to my question,

did you feel loved?

Do you feel loved?