It was all about the secret meetings, the stolen kisses, the sweet nothings. The making out sessions were steamy, fierce, spontaneous. The butterflies in our stomachs would always flutter when we looked into our lovers' eyes. Our thirst to love and to be loved would never quench. When we first loved, we believed in our hearts that it was meant to be. But then, tragedy befell us. People changed. They left. They decided that maybe, just maybe, we weren't enough. Whatever happened obviously broke us, scarred us and we swore to ourselves that we would never love again. Our generation has always seen love and sex together. Our parents fell in love before or after marriage, and that's also when they first had sex. And so, our generation has always seen sex as an extension of the love two people have for each other, a consummating act to prove where our loyalties lie.

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But now, in the age of Tinder where we're busy swiping right and left, love has gone for a toss. Love now is this thing that you see other people have, a thing you wished you had but something you never really open to. People say you get wiser with age, but with love even the wisest of people have failed. There's confusion everywhere.

By the time we hit our mid 20s, life takes over. Work, friends and casual sex is just enough because who's got the time for love, eh? And just like that we give up on the idea of love, on the feeling one gets in a lover's warm embrace and the tiny gestures they make that tell us how much they treasure us.

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We stop opening our hearts to avoid feeling vulnerable again