How do I know if I'm romanticizing someone instead of actually loving them?

Mirabai knew the difference intimately. She loved Krishna not as he was imagined in court poetry, but as the living, sometimes exasperating presence in her own heart. The distinction is this: romanticization keeps someone at a distance, perfect and unchanging. It's a mirror for your own longings. Real love, even the devoted kind, has friction. It includes disappointment. It asks you to see the actual person—their smallness, their flaws, their reality—and choose them anyway. Start by noticing: Can you imagine this person being angry at you? Refusing you? Changing their mind? If they exist only in your best thoughts about them, you're likely building a shrine, not a relationship. Real love survives the daylight. It knows the person's voice when they're tired, their opinions you don't share, the way they actually spend their time. Mirabai's devotion was tested constantly—by her family, by tradition, by Krishna's seeming absence. What kept her tethered wasn't fantasy. It was the raw, examined experience of her own heart meeting something beyond herself. That clarity comes from paying attention to what's actually happening, not what you need it to mean.