I go back and forth between being a cynic about love and a hopeless romantic - an often closeted hopeless romantic, but one nonetheless. When I look around me and I see most of the relationships of my peers, the truth is I do not feel comforted. I see people who are selling themselves short just to have any kind of love. I see people who want to engage in unnecessary fights and quarrels under the guise of passion. I see people who are so dependent on each other for validation and an identity. And I see lust and the fear of being alone and the need to be wanted by anyone, as substitutes for love.