Bloggers often paint themselves as hermits, and some of us are. Maybe not to the extent of developing an adverse reaction to sunlight but to the point where we are online more often than out socializing. But that’s okay because we have twin souls on the internet, we meet strangers that will only every be identified as “Stranger” and share inside jokes on a shared interest. There’s a lot of sharing on the internet, you can put your personality, feelings, secrets, and beliefs into streams of data visible to the masses. We are hyper social, efficiently social, globally social. We are crafted into social machines through social media. Many of us can work a crowd but not a conversation. And it can be difficult. Because even though the love of the masses is at your fingertips, or even just the love of that one aunt that lives in Georgia and forgets that you are neither 12 nor 4’9”, romantic love can be hard to cultivate as a hyper-social hermit. But this hyper-socialism has also helped me to recognize romantic love in it’s many different forms. There’s the one that is so rooted in friendship the two are indistinguishable, the one that is sudden and jarring brought on by a revelation of importance, there is the kind that manifests in after-care, in sex, without sex, separate from sex. But love is a special and sacred part of every human heart, and unique to each. And it has no boundaries and cannot be defined for one by another. I cannot tell you what love is because it is different. I cannot tell you that love is running through a parking lot holding hands for the sake of ‘adventure’, because to you that is not what love is, love is something special, just for you. So in this beloved space of hyper-social communication I hope you remember that. That what you don’t find to be love may be love for another. So you can’t say “but they’re another gender”, “but I thought you were _____sexual”, “but BDSM doesn’t involve love”, “but he/she/ze looks this way”. There is no argument against love and love should never be opposed*. If someone finds love there is no debate only “Congratulations”.

(*as a former abuse victim/witness keep in mind that if you recognize signs of abuse but not as part of your own prejudice (racism, homophobia, anti-BDSM mentality, transphobia, etc.) that those should be dealt with in a safe manner and always with cooperation from the victim and with focus on their safety. Make sure to do the proper research on the way to handle it and seek appropriate resources.)