Emma Watson believed love was 'pain'

Emma Watson used to believe love was 'pain' and admits she has made dating mistakes in the past.

The 22-year-old actress, who is dating student Will Adamowicz, had a 'revelation' that relationships could be happy and admits she has had some bad experiences in the past.

She said: 'When I started dating, I had this kind of 'Romeo and Juliet', fateful, romantic idea about love. It was almost that you were a victim - that there was a lot of pain involved and that was how it should be.

'Shakespeare said the course of true love never did run smooth and I had a sense it had to be painful. It was such a revelation to realise it shouldn't be that way and you get to choose who you love and who you give your heart to.

'It sounds like a cliche but I also learnt that you're not going to fall for the right person until you love yourself and feel good about how you are.

'The sad thing is you only learn from experience, so as much as someone can tell you things, you have to go out there and make your own mistakes in order to learn.'

Apart from Will, who she has been dating for almost a year, Emma insists she has only ever had three other boyfriends, financier Jay Barrymore, indie rocker George Craig, and actor Johnny Simmons, and she admits constant speculation about her personal life makes relationships 'difficult'.

She told the Daily Mirror newspaper: 'It's difficult on my dating life. Anyone I get photographed with is automatically my boyfriend. So it makes it look as if I've had, like, 6000 boyfriends.'