Is True Love a Myth?

“Love is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.”— Plato, The Symposium

We live in a world obsessed with love.

It’s in our movies, songs, books, dating apps, social feeds. The stories we tell ourselves — about soulmates, fairytale endings, one true person who completes us — shape our deepest desires and biggest heartbreaks.

But under all the dreamy aesthetics, a question lingers:

Is true love real? Or is it a beautiful myth that sets us up for disappointment?

Philosophy doesn’t shy away from this question. In fact, it has wrestled with it for over two thousand years.

From the mystical visions of Plato to the radical vulnerability of bell hooks, thinkers have examined love not as a fluff-filled emotion, but as one of the most powerful — and dangerous — forces in human life.

This article is not going to tell you what to believe. But it will challenge how you think about love.

Whether you're heartbroken, happily in love, or jaded beyond recognition, there's something in here for you.

I. Plato: Love as Longing for Wholeness

Let’s start with Plato. In his famous dialogue The Symposium, he tells a myth through the voice of Aristophanes.

Once upon a time, humans were spherical beings with four arms, four legs, and two faces. The gods, fearing their power, split them in two. Since then, each person wanders the earth searching for their lost half.

This is where we get the idea of a "soulmate" — someone who completes us.

But Plato’s deeper point was this: love is a spiritual hunger. It’s the desire to become whole, to touch the divine, to reach beyond our human limitations.

Real love, according to Plato, doesn’t stop at physical attraction. It ascends — from body to mind, from desire to truth, from individual to the eternal.

So yes, love is real. But the version most people chase? Plato would say it's only the first step.

II. Simone de Beauvoir: Love Is Freedom, Not Fusion

Fast forward to 20th-century France.

Simone de Beauvoir — philosopher, feminist, and existentialist — argued that love becomes destructive when we see it as merging two people into one.

She rejected the soulmate fantasy. Not because she was cold, but because she saw how it erased the self.

She believed love should be a partnership of two freedoms — not a fusion of two incomplete halves.

When we try to “complete” ourselves with another person, we set impossible expectations. We demand constant affirmation, permanent desire, endless emotional safety. And when reality fails to meet that fantasy, we call it failure.

De Beauvoir’s radical idea? Love is only real when both people remain fully themselves — when they grow side by side, not into each other.

III. bell hooks: Love as a Verb

bell hooks took it one step further.

In her groundbreaking book All About Love, she wrote that love is not a feeling. It is an action.

“Love is the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”

That definition flips everything.

Love isn’t butterflies. It’s not obsessive passion. It’s not losing yourself in another. It’s showing up. Every day. With honesty, care, boundaries, and effort.

If love is action, then we can’t fall into it. We choose it. We build it.

So maybe true love isn’t a myth — maybe our definition has just been lazy.

IV. The Danger of Romantic Idealism

Here’s the problem: most of us have been trained to see love as a peak emotional experience. A grand cosmic collision. A thing that just happens — if we’re lucky.

But this romantic idealism often leads to disappointment. It sets us up to believe that:

• Love should be effortless

• Passion never fades

• The right person will “just know” what we need

• Conflict means something’s wrong

And so, when real relationships become hard — which they always do — we panic. We ghost. We doubt. We leave.

Modern philosopher Alain de Botton says it best:

“The good news is that love is not a feeling. It is a skill.”

Just like cooking or playing the piano, love requires practice, patience, humility, and sometimes, failing spectacularly.

V. Is There Such a Thing as “The One”?

Short answer? Philosophers don’t agree.

Plato’s myth of the soulmate is poetic, but even he believed that the purpose of love was to elevate us toward truth, not to tie us to a single person forever.

Existentialists like Kierkegaard believed that love’s value lies in the commitment despite uncertainty. You can never truly know another person. Loving them anyway is the most courageous thing you can do.

Modern psychology tends to back this up. The idea of “The One” often puts pressure on relationships. It suggests that if things aren’t perfect, you must be with the wrong person. But real love is rarely perfect. It’s co-created, not discovered.

So instead of asking “Is this my soulmate?” the better question might be: “Can we build something meaningful together, right here, right now?”

VI. The Fear Beneath the Fantasy

If we dig deeper, the obsession with “true love” often hides a deeper fear: the fear of loneliness.

We want a soulmate because we want to feel safe. We want someone who will never leave, who will always understand, who will protect us from the ache of being alone.

But this is an impossible request.

No one can rescue you from yourself.

And the people who try to fill that role for each other often end up resentful, drained, or dependent.

Philosophy teaches us that love begins not in fusion, but in solitude. You must learn to stand alone before you can stand beside someone else without collapsing into them.

VII. Love Without Guarantees

True love, if it exists, is not guaranteed.

It doesn’t promise happiness every day. It doesn’t erase your wounds. It doesn’t always last forever.

But maybe that’s what makes it beautiful.

In The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm argued that love is not something that happens to us — it is something we cultivate through care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.

And perhaps what we’re really searching for isn’t “the perfect person,” but the capacity within ourselves to love well — to love bravely — even in an imperfect world.

VIII. Can We Still Believe in True Love?

So is true love a myth?

That depends on what you mean.

If you mean a flawless, all-consuming, painless forever… then yes, it’s a myth. A beautiful one, but a myth nonetheless.

But if you mean something deeper — a bond rooted in freedom, truth, action, and growth — then true love not only exists. It might be the most powerful force we ever encounter.

It just doesn’t come easy. And it doesn’t come from outside.

It begins with how you love yourself.How you love the world.How you choose to show up, again and again, for someone else — not because you have to, but because you want to.

That kind of love is rare. But it’s real.

Final Thought

Maybe true love isn’t something we find.

Maybe it’s something we learn. Something we choose. Something we create, moment by moment, breath by breath.

Philosophers have argued about love for centuries, but they agree on this much: the way you love shapes who you are.

So ask yourself: not “Will I ever find true love?”But rather: “Can I become someone who loves truly?”

The answer might change your life.