MUMBAI: Vaishalee Thakkar’s idea of love is realistic. For the Saath Nibhaana Saathiya 2 actor, love means respect and compassion. Love is a glorified emotion.
 
“Love means different things to different people at different stages of life. I had read a very interesting article where they said that they had to glorify something like love and romance for human beings to bind together. As you grow older, when we’re young we’ve that immense love and attachment with our mother, and that attachment we think is love. Same way when we’re young we get attached to somebody else, and that's what we think is love. Then we have our own children and we get attached to them and feel that it’s love. It’ basically the attachment, attraction and emotion that binds us... That particular phase in life changes as we grow. It depends on what stage of life you are in and who you’re getting attached to at that particular stage in life. Love is also where people get attached to their pets and that’s absolutely respectable,” says the actor, known for TV shows, Ek Mahal Ho Sapno Ka, Baa Bahoo Aur Baby and Uttaran.

Social media has blurred the lines between real and fake, and has confused many. “I think we have blurred the lines and not social media. We want to live in that make-believe world where only virtual love can exist. If you’re really looking for real love then you’ve to be a part of the real world to find it. We need to understand that it is an unreal world where we are expecting real emotions out of the unreal world. We’ve to be cautious,” she adds.
 
Even if one falls in love, giving time becomes an issue these days. “If you’re expecting 19th-century love in the 21st century then we’re definitely going to be very disappointed. Today we are chasing our dreams and we want to have a career and then we kind of have to compromise, and unfortunately time is one thing which we’ve to manage. We’re compromising and cannot give so much time in today's world to our loved ones, but at the same time, we’ve to be smart that whatever time we give, the quality of that particular time will matter,” she says.
 
Many say love is an illusion. Vaishalee explains, “If I’m going to look at someone's relationship and try to have that kind of a relationship in my life then love will definitely be an illusion. Every relationship is different and real in its own way… You might like somebody else but that person might feel differently. If that person can't understand that part then love can be an illusion. If we’re expecting something from someone, which s/he doesn’t have it all then it will be an illusion. If you know and take the person the way he or she is, you will be more in the realistic zone,” she adds.

It’s often said that celebrities don't find true love. “I feel celebrities are an easy target, be it love, morality, or anything else. People will always have opinions about them. We all are human beings and we all have different experiences and each experience is different. If you are destined to have the love and relationship then you definitely would have it, whether you are a celeb or a commoner,” she concludes.