Dr Joel Teelucks­ingh

Valen­tine’s Day per­forms ro­mance very well.

Restau­rants fill with dodgy ser­vice and in­flat­ed prices. Florists thrive. So­cial me­dia be­comes an ex­hi­bi­tion of cu­rat­ed de­vo­tion. Even the chron­i­cal­ly in­dif­fer­ent de­vel­op an opin­ion about love.

How­ev­er, Valen­tine’s Day does not cre­ate lone­li­ness. It ex­pos­es it.

For most of the year, we can ig­nore cer­tain ab­sences. Work fills the hours. Oblig­a­tions sup­ply noise. Screens pro­vide dis­trac­tion. But a hol­i­day de­vot­ed en­tire­ly to ro­man­tic at­tach­ment makes com­par­i­son un­avoid­able.

We as­sume con­nec­tion will ar­rive when it choos­es to but we ac­cept that phys­i­cal well-be­ing de­mands ef­fort. In truth, both re­spond to care. Nei­ther sus­tains it­self un­at­tend­ed.

Ill­ness rarely be­gins dra­mat­i­cal­ly. It ac­cu­mu­lates qui­et­ly, through ne­glect, through de­lay, through habits that seemed harm­less in iso­la­tion. Re­la­tion­ships fol­low sim­i­lar tra­jec­to­ries. They de­te­ri­o­rate through dis­trac­tion, through ex­haus­tion, through words with­held be­cause con­fronta­tion feels in­con­ve­nient.

This does not make us flawed. It makes us con­tem­po­rary.

Mod­ern life is ex­pert­ly de­signed to erode in­ti­ma­cy. We are per­ma­nent­ly reach­able and per­pet­u­al­ly tired. We an­swer mes­sages in­stant­ly and emo­tions even­tu­al­ly. We sched­ule meet­ings with pre­ci­sion and post­pone rest in­def­i­nite­ly. Then we won­der why con­nec­tion feels elu­sive.

Ex­haus­tion is not ro­man­tic. Chron­ic stress does not pro­duce ten­der­ness. A ner­vous sys­tem in con­stant alert strug­gles with gen­eros­i­ty. When pa­tients tell me they want com­pan­ion­ship but lack the en­er­gy for it, I un­der­stand. The body can­not of­fer what it does not pos­sess.

There is a phys­i­o­log­i­cal re­al­i­ty be­neath the po­et­ry of love. Lone­li­ness is not sen­ti­men­tal. It is bi­o­log­i­cal.

Pro­longed iso­la­tion el­e­vates cor­ti­sol, dis­rupts sleep, stiff­ens blood ves­sels and in­ten­si­fies in­flam­ma­tion. The body in­ter­prets sus­tained dis­con­nec­tion as threat. That is not metaphor. It is mea­sur­able.

Yet, we hes­i­tate to speak about re­la­tion­al health with the se­ri­ous­ness we af­ford blood pres­sure or glu­cose.

In Feb­ru­ary, pa­tients ask whether be­ing sin­gle is un­healthy. It is not. Chron­ic in­vis­i­bil­i­ty is.

Some of the most sta­ble and con­tent in­di­vid­u­als I know are un­at­tached. They pos­sess com­mu­ni­ty, pur­pose and rhythm. Their lives are not wait­ing rooms. Con­verse­ly, I have treat­ed mar­ried pa­tients whose soli­tude is acute and per­sis­tent. Prox­im­i­ty does not guar­an­tee con­nec­tion.

Valen­tine’s Day mar­kets a nar­row im­age of love. Paired, pub­lic, cel­e­bra­to­ry. Re­al at­tach­ment is less the­atri­cal. It is con­struct­ed in small­er, less vis­i­ble in­cre­ments. At­ten­tion giv­en with­out dis­trac­tion. Lis­ten­ing with­out re­hears­ing a re­ply. The will­ing­ness to re­pair af­ter con­flict rather than with­draw in­to si­lence.

I am of­ten asked what the health­i­est re­la­tion­ships share. Peo­ple ex­pect grand an­swers. Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty. Pas­sion. Chem­istry. Those mat­ter but they are not de­ci­sive. The com­mon de­nom­i­na­tor I ob­serve is “com­pro­mise.”

Healthy part­ner­ships are formed be­tween in­di­vid­u­als ca­pa­ble of man­ag­ing their own in­ter­nal cli­mate. They tol­er­ate dis­com­fort with­out flee­ing. They rest with­out guilt. They re­main present in si­lence. They do not col­lapse when alone.

These ca­pac­i­ties are not ro­man­tic traits. They are phys­i­o­log­i­cal com­pe­ten­cies. They are shaped by sleep, by stress, by rou­tine, by the de­gree to which a per­son is chron­i­cal­ly over­whelmed.

This is where med­i­cine in­ter­sects qui­et­ly with love.

I have watched pa­tients im­prove their phys­i­cal health and, al­most in­ci­den­tal­ly, im­prove their re­la­tion­ships. Con­sis­tent sleep tem­pers ir­ri­tabil­i­ty. Ex­er­cise re­stores con­fi­dence. Struc­tured rou­tines cul­ti­vate re­li­a­bil­i­ty. Emo­tion­al steadi­ness be­comes more avail­able when the body is not per­pet­u­al­ly de­plet­ed.

Health does not man­u­fac­ture love. It makes love sus­tain­able.

I have al­so ob­served the in­verse. In­di­vid­u­als seek­ing ro­mance as a cor­rec­tive for dis­sat­is­fac­tion dis­cov­er that re­la­tion­ships am­pli­fy what­ev­er is al­ready present. A part­ner can­not sub­sti­tute for in­ner sta­bil­i­ty. Love does not neu­tralise lone­li­ness if lone­li­ness orig­i­nates with­in. It mere­ly changes its ad­dress.

Valen­tine’s Day en­cour­ages the be­lief that love ar­rives as res­cue. That once cho­sen, life re­solves. Med­i­cine teach­es cau­tion to­ward cures promis­ing ease.

Any­thing durable de­mands main­te­nance.

The oth­er ques­tion that sur­faces this time of year is whether time is run­ning out. Whether a par­tic­u­lar age car­ries a dead­line. The body de­fies neat time­lines. Re­cov­ery oc­curs lat­er than pre­dict­ed. Ill­ness ap­pears ear­li­er than ex­pect­ed. Lives do not fol­low sym­met­ri­cal arcs.

Peo­ple fall in love af­ter loss, af­ter ill­ness, af­ter decades of be­liev­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty had ex­pired. Ca­pac­i­ty for con­nec­tion per­sists longer than courage some­times al­lows.

What al­ters is not po­ten­tial. It is will­ing­ness.

When some­one asks me to help them find love or a part­ner, I can­not write a pre­scrip­tion. But I can rec­om­mend prepa­ra­tion.

Rest. Bound­aries. Hon­est friend­ships. The dis­ci­pline of tend­ing to one’s own health with se­ri­ous­ness. Not to be­come more at­trac­tive, but to be­come more avail­able.

This Valen­tine’s Day, some will cel­e­brate ex­trav­a­gant­ly. Oth­ers will en­dure qui­et­ly. Both ex­pe­ri­ences are le­git­i­mate.

If you have a sig­nif­i­cant oth­er, un­der­stand that love is rarely pre­served by spec­ta­cle. It is pro­tect­ed by steadi­ness. By at­ten­tion sus­tained long af­ter the flow­ers fade. By choos­ing pa­tience when fa­tigue tempts in­dif­fer­ence.

If you are sin­gle, un­der­stand that your life is not sus­pend­ed. Con­nec­tion is not con­fined to ro­mance. De­vo­tion to friends, to fam­i­ly, to mean­ing­ful work nour­ish­es the same phys­i­ol­o­gy that ro­man­tic at­tach­ment does. The heart re­sponds to be­long­ing in many forms.

Even­tu­al­ly the day will con­clude. The ros­es will wilt. Reser­va­tions will be for­got­ten. The cu­rat­ed pho­tographs will drift down­ward in end­less feeds.

What re­mains is what al­ways re­mains. The state of your ner­vous sys­tem. The steadi­ness of your habits. The qual­i­ty of your con­nec­tions when no one is watch­ing.

The heart is not mere­ly a pump. It is ex­quis­ite­ly re­spon­sive to how we live. Med­i­cine can pro­long its rhythm.

But it is the dai­ly prac­tice of pres­ence that al­lows it to beat well.