Love stories don't always start the same way. There's the good 'ole boy meets girl, with a few variations. Then there's girl hates boy, or maybe she loves boy from afar, or maybe they both love each other but can't admit it. Either way, it always ends with the same three words: "Happily ever after."

These are the stories, the books and the movies that I grew up with. This is how I knew what love would look like when love arrived. But, the countless rom-com movie marathons could never prepare me for what happens when love leaves. Because they will leave, sometimes without warning. Other times you can feel it and you will fight for it- or not. But, they will leave regardless. And despite this, the door to my heart has always remained open, waiting for the next arrival, who will hopefully close the door behind them.

However, every time that someone comes along, I feel like there is less of me to give. And such is the cycle of being a romantic in the digital age. It's easier to ignore someone and in that sense, it also makes it easier to break some hearts and take some names. You see, it’s so much easier to hide your heart behind a little screen. We may be living in the digital age, but that doesn't mean we should upgrade to these hardened cold cores.

But, in love, things are always easier said than done. I knew very well how to love, how to give, but i never knew where to draw the line and before I had realized it, I was handing out my attention and interest like they were free samples. Despite all the people who only took but never stayed, my heart still glowed with a neon vacancy sign. It seemed that I was always open, whether it be to hurt or love, I was just hoping that someone would stay. Is being this hopelessly romantic a gift or a curse?

There were moments that answered this question, moments where I thought “This is it. Girl meets boy. Here we are and we will be so happy.” This sort of mentality is a double-edged sword in the way that by the end I am proven wrong and they were not who I thought they were. And when they leave, they leave behind a lesson as well.

What the movies never showed was when you should give up. I didn't know how to, nor when I should. In the movies, even though the characters faced impossible odds, the credits never rolled until they were together at last. And what's taken me so long to come to grips with is that life is not a neat little ninety-minute movie with Edith Piaf playing in the background. Life is full of so many surprises and detours, we can never know what is to come. Or, who is to come. In fact, people don't arrive with the intention of falling in love with us. That comes when we all take a chance, because there might be fate, but not without a course of action.

So, keep believing. You never know what could happen between you and that kid in your lecture hall or that cutie from the coffee shop. Don't let the world harden you, but always remember that you are not at the mercy of fate. It happens if you make it happen.

And since we're all hopeless, foolish romantics here, I believe we can all agree that Jane Austen said it best: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope."