True Love.

There was a girl. Her real name is of no import, so we shall call her Jane.

Jane was an extraordinarily ordinary girl. This wouldn't have been a problem if the word "ordinary" hadn't taken on an extraordinary meaning. The word now stood for all that a person shouldn't be, in this day and age of extraordinariness. Everyone was a star in his or her own way, everyone the owner of a little badge with the words "You are unique!" printed on it, commonly accompanied by a picture of a star. Everyone believed in their own uniqueness.

Except for Jane. For no one could so openly lie, and tell her she was special, so unspecial was she. The only thing remarkable about her was her plainness, and of course nobody had the heart to tell her this.

Jane fell in love a number of times, primarily in her youth. Falling in love got increasingly harder as she got older. When she was young there was plenty to love. The soft scent of flowers. The majesty of a mountain. Gentle rain on a sleepy afternoon. The rainbow after the rain.

But her grown-up mind dissects all these. Merely a somewhat pretty effect caused by the diffraction of light through water. The result of plate tectonics. Life had ground her down, her love and her enthusiasm for life.

There were times when Jane felt acutely lonely. Even more than usual. The onset of which could have been caused by any number of things, say, a good movie. A love song. A book. Sunset. In this heightened state of loneliness, a certain despair would begin to gnaw at her. She felt that something had to be done.

Cue the boys. Lonely boys, to be sure. These never quite worked out though, despite all her earnest efforts. But none of them ever truly loved her. And if she were to be perfectly honest, she would admit that the converse was true too.

But sometimes it felt so real. Like there was so much more to be had. With some of them, she felt as if she could almost be happy. Always, she thought: I am in love! only to find out that no, she wasn't, after all.

And she discovered a truth: An illusion of love is created when two lonely people, each desperate to fall in love, meet.