Healthy love is calm, stable, and secure, and the path to love is a skill learned through communication, understanding, and compromise - this was the key message from participants at the panel discussion “A Cup of Coffee with a Psychologist,” held before a full audience at Dorćol Platz and organized by the Hemofarm Foundation.

Ahead of the Day of Love, panelists Ana Ivanov, psychologist and PhD candidate at the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, Andrej Nosov, director and founder of the Heartefact Fund, Pero di Reda (DJ Peppe), and Dragan Ilić, psychologist and journalist, discussed the topic “Love in the Age of Individualism: Never More Connected, Never More Lonely.”

Modern love is not necessarily weaker than before, but it is more exposed to psychological and social pressures, said psychologist Ana Ivanov. She added that in a culture of rapid choices and constant comparison, the quality of relationships becomes a crucial protective factor for mental health. “Love, when secure and nurtured, has the potential to protect, stabilize, and strengthen an individual. When it is superficial, unstable, or burdened by fear and insecurity, it can become a source of serious psychological pain,” Ivanov emphasized.



Speaking about love, director Andrej Nosov said that one can also speak of love for this world as it is, because there is no better one. He noted that he perceives love as Hannah Arendt described it - “love for a world that is not perfect.” “I love this world as it is because I don’t have a better one,” he said, adding that today we often forget what alienation looked like 15–20 years ago. “Now we choose to do something for ourselves, to acknowledge that our relationships are not perfect, that there are no fireworks every day, and if there are, that they are the exception.”



Pero di Reda, DJ Peppe, spoke about love as a universal language and about dating culture from the 1990s to today, emphasizing that dance has long been more than movement, it has been a language of attraction, a way of connecting, and a subtle courtship ritual. “We went out chasing socializing, music, fun; we danced all night, there was a lot of laughter and many adventures. I feel that this has partly disappeared with new generations and with phones and social media. Communication has moved online and has become almost unnecessary in person. I often have the impression that people stand next to each other texting instead of talking,” DJ Peppe said.



Participants agreed that the future of romantic relationships lies in a diversity of forms: technology and artificial intelligence will not replace love, but they will reshape the context of intimacy. In such a world, the question is no longer whether love is possible, but whether we are ready to slow down, tolerate frustration, and nurture a relationship as a process rather than a disposable product.



The project “A Cup of Coffee with a Psychologist” has been implemented since 2019 with the goal of encouraging the public to care for mental health in the same way they care for physical health, and not to view mental health struggles as personal weakness but as health issues with solutions when professional help is sought in time. To date, the project has gathered nearly 90 experts and distinguished public figures, while videos from the panel discussions on YouTube have recorded close to one million views. The project is carried out in partnership with the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade and with the support of the Art Commune Dorćol Platz.