Hopeless Romantics and Hopeful Realists

Contemplation on projections in relationships

A hopeless romantic will put you on a pedestal. They will never be able to see you, because the you that they are seeing is mostly a projection colored by their own romantic fantasies. A hopeless romantic builds dream castles in their mind, and due to the power of these expectations they can never be satisfied with the way things actually are. And when it turns out that their loved one falls short of their projections, the hopeless romantic has no choice but to find a new object of worship.

A hopeful realist will be aware of the powers of projection. They will patiently await for those initial emotional storms to settle, holding onto a hope that something equally beautiful and more real awaits on the other side. A hopeful realist knows the complexity and changebility of life so they don't need to force anything to be the way they dreamed. They will see reality for what it is, but choose the hopeful perspective: that whatever happens, something good will come out of it in the end. There are no failures, only chances to learn and grow.

Truth is, these descriptions are very biased, because they are colored by my experiences.

It was the hopeless romantic that most hurt me.

But I have also been that hopeless romantic myself.

In the wake of chasing my dreams, I hurt others and was unable to truly see them.

So, I'll choose a hopeful realist any day.

And I choose to be one, if I only can.

But your path may be different than mine.

There's a magical quality to the romantic's life.

And yet, magic comes in many forms.

There's magic in stillness as well as in storms.