My current mental model of love is a bit like bungee jumping. You walk off from the guaranteed safety of reclusiveness and take a wild jump into the unknown, blind faith the only tether that you wrap around yourself before doing so.
Sometimes you fall and hit the floor. Hard. And it hurts, (people say it hurts so i presume it does) so the natural human instinct is to prevent the hurt from happening again. You lace the ground with cushions of “lets still be friends” but when those cushions give way your face still ends up bashing the ground. You strengthen the tether with rational reasoning and caution, but then it becomes to brittle and snaps underneath its own weight.
But after some number of tries, you discover the act of falling itself is quite exhilarating. That feeling of the air howling around you, not knowing what comes next, your stomach going into your chest. You’re a slave to the gravitational pull of whatever’s at the bottom, but theres none of that right now. You’re flying, bounded by nothing on all sides, free to explore this current time and space.
If you can enjoy the fall, you’ll keep jumping no matter if you’ll hit the floor