Love Never Asks Permission: But We Should

I watched Suspicious Minds at the Phoenix Theatre last week — Fowler's time-bending romance about love, loss, and the chaos of choosing badly.

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**Love Never Asks Permission: But We Should** I watched *Suspicious Minds* at the Phoenix Theatre last week — Fowler's time-bending romance about love, loss, and the chaos of choosing badly.

The protagonist keeps returning to the same moment, trying to rewrite his love story.

Here's what the play gets right: love isn't about finding the perfect person.

It's about finding someone whose damage matches yours in interesting ways.

But there's a darker thread in today's headlines that makes me uncomfortable.

Love Never Asks Permission: But We Should

I watched *Suspicious Minds* at the Phoenix Theatre last week — Fowler's time-bending romance about love, loss, and the chaos of choosing badly. The protagonist keeps returning to the same moment, trying to rewrite his love story. Sound familiar?

Here's what the play gets right: love isn't about finding the perfect person. It's about finding someone whose damage matches yours in interesting ways.

But there's a darker thread in today's headlines that makes me uncomfortable. Stories of adoption gone wrong, of trust weaponised against the most vulnerable. It reminds me of something I learned in Melbourne, watching a friend stay with someone who hurt her: we mistake intensity for intimacy.

The difference matters. Intensity is that breathless feeling when someone pays you attention — any attention. It's the adopted child grateful for care, even when it comes with conditions. It's the reality TV bride convinced that drama equals passion. It's the sports fan who thinks threatening a referee's family is loyalty.

Intimacy is quieter. It's the Outlander finale question: after seven seasons, do Claire and Jamie actually know each other? Or have they just survived each other?

I think about the Filipino families sending balikbayan boxes home — those packages stuffed with love made tangible. Soap, chocolate, medicine, photos. That's intimacy: knowing exactly what someone needs and sending it across oceans without asking for anything back.

Real love asks permission before entering. It doesn't demand gratitude for existing. It doesn't threaten when disappointed. It doesn't confuse power with protection.

In Rome, I dated someone who said he loved me "too much to let me leave." Red flag disguised as romance. Love that restricts isn't love — it's fear wearing love's face.

The truth we don't want to hear: sometimes the people who claim to love us most are the ones we should trust least. They use our need for connection against us. They know our wounds and press on them.

Love should make you feel safer, not smaller. If it doesn't, it's not love.

It's just someone else's damage trying to match yours.

Editor's Note

The real damage here isn't romantic heartbreak — it's when the powerful exploit trust while ordinary families wait years to adopt through proper channels, watching wealthy connections skip the queue.

— Sophia Borg

Elena Vella

Love, Life & Relationships Editor

Elena Vella grew up in Malta, moved to Australia at 22, lived six different lives, and came back. She has been married more times than she will admit, loved deeply and badly, and learned everything the hard way. She writes about love, relationships, and the interior life with the precision of someone who has been paying very close attention.

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Edited by Ilhan Irem Yuce · Chief Editor, News Beast