The Spark Is a Liar: A Case for Slow Love

My grandmother, a woman who wore Chanel №5 to weed her garden, once told me that love isn’t a lightning bolt. It’s a slow-cooked stew.

I was sixteen, rolling my eyes, convinced she was out of touch. Love, as I understood it then, was a Taylor Swift song. It was a look across a crowded room, a frantic text, a stomach full of butterflies doing the jitterbug. It was a lightning bolt, and I was waiting to be struck.

It took me two decades, one divorce, and a series of spectacularly bad dates to realize she was right.

We’ve been sold a myth. The myth of the “spark.” We treat it like the ultimate litmus test, the single most important indicator of a relationship’s potential. We swipe left or right based on a photo’s ability to generate a flicker of interest. We go on a first date and spend the entire time scanning our bodies for a jolt of electricity, a sign from the universe that this is it.

And if we don’t feel it? We politely finish our drinks, send the “had a great time, but no connection” text, and get back on the apps, convinced we just need to find a bigger, better spark.

But what if the spark is a liar?

What if the spark is just chemistry? A cocktail of hormones and projection, a biological “hello” that has very little to do with long-term compatibility? The spark is easy. The spark is a firework — loud, bright, and over in a flash, leaving behind a haze of smoke and the smell of gunpowder. It’s the person you have an intoxicating, whirlwind two-week romance with, only to realize you have nothing to talk about when you’re not tearing each other’s clothes off.

The real stuff, the stuff my grandmother was talking about, is the stew. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t announce itself with a bang. It’s the quiet, consistent warmth of a low flame. It’s the scent of onions and garlic and time, filling a house with the promise of something nourishing.

The stew is built on something far less sexy but infinitely more powerful: curiosity.

The spark says, “I want you.”
Curiosity says, “I want to know you.”

The spark is about what you can get. Curiosity is about what you can discover. It’s the desire to learn the landscape of another person. What are their childhood memories? What are they afraid of? What makes them laugh so hard they snort? What are the small, unspoken things that make them feel seen?

This is where we get it wrong. We treat dating like a job interview, a series of questions designed to assess whether the other person fits into the pre-cut mold of our life. We’re looking for someone who likes the same movies, has the same hobbies, wants the same number of kids. We’re building a checklist, not a connection.

Instead, try dating with curiosity. Ask questions that don’t have a right or wrong answer. Ask, “What was the best day of your life?” not “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Ask, “What’s a belief you hold that most people would disagree with?” not “What do you do for a living?” The goal isn’t to see if they fit. The goal is to see who they are.

And here’s the second, harder truth: the stew requires acceptance.

We are all, every single one of us, a package deal. We come with a beautiful, messy, complicated set of experiences, traumas, and quirks. We have bad days where we’re grumpy for no reason. We have insecurities that rear their ugly heads. We have family dynamics that are… well, complicated.

The spark is allergic to this. The spark wants perfection. It wants the curated, filtered version of you. The moment you show up with your bad mood or your anxiety, the spark fizzles.

The stew, however, embraces it. Acceptance isn’t about tolerating your partner’s flaws; it’s about seeing them as part of the whole, intricate person you love. It’s understanding that their anxiety is the flip side of their incredible empathy. It’s knowing that their grumpiness on a Tuesday is just a bad day, not a character assassination.

Acceptance is the moment you can be your unfiltered, un-showered, emotionally-drained self, and they look at you and say, “I’m here.” It’s not about fixing each other. It’s about holding space for the mess. It’s the quiet confidence of knowing you can be a total disaster, and they’ll still be there, maybe with a cup of tea and a bad joke, waiting for the storm to pass.

Finally, the stew needs effort.

This is the least romantic part, but it’s the most crucial. Love isn’t a feeling you fall into; it’s a choice you make, every single day. It’s the conscious decision to be kind when you’re tired. It’s the effort to listen when you’d rather be scrolling on your phone. It’s sending that text that says, “I was just thinking about you,” not because you want something, but because you wanted them to know.

The spark requires no effort. It’s a chemical reaction. But the stew? The stew is a labor of love. It’s a constant, gentle tending of the flame. It’s the boring Tuesday nights and the shared grocery lists. It’s the arguments over whose turn it is to do the dishes and the silent apologies in the form of a shared look. It’s the slow, accumulated weight of a million tiny, mundane moments that build a life together.

My grandmother and grandfather were married for 54 years. I once asked her if she ever thought about leaving him. She laughed, a wry, knowing laugh. “Every day for the first five years,” she said. “And then one day, I realized I didn’t want to. He wasn’t the lightning bolt. He was the roof over my head. He was the steady ground. He was the stew.”

So, if you’re out there, searching for the lightning bolt, and you keep getting burned, maybe it’s time to change your recipe.

Maybe it’s time to stop looking for a spark and start looking for someone you’re genuinely curious about. Someone you can be your real self with. Someone who is willing to put in the daily effort to build a life with you.

Stop looking for the firework.

Start looking for the fire that keeps you warm.

It’s a slower burn, but it lasts all night.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.