(answer: to life, to love? yes, yes there is.)
What is romanticized too much in the media? Romance. We won’t shut up about it, myself included.
It is what we hype up too much, what we fixate on, what twitter makes think pieces on in rotation. It is ironic because we have a severe lack of love in this world.
When I bought bell hooks' all about love, I bought it as a college freshman who had never been in love before (still haven’t but not too much) hoping to read about all the things I could do to attract it. I was surprised when I was met with the actual contents of the book. Yes, hooks does talk about romantic partnership, but I think her overall messaging of the book (I haven’t finished yet) is that this world of humans suffers from a severe lack of love for each other and, arguably, other non-human entities.
I had never seen that message stated in such a way before. The reason is because we care more about power than we do about caring for one another. We weaponize any opportunity to exploit, extract, and exterminate. If we were to truly, truly, love one another we would move more ethically and a lot of our problems would be solved.
That is why I find it so ironic that we as a society fixate on “relationships” so much. Every movie, every song, every book, every play, that involves romance is shoved down our throats. I scroll on Tik Tok and everything is about dating, or how not to get played, or what boys actually mean when they do one thing. I know the algorithm is based on what you like so possibly just outed myself there BUT I have clicked not interested so many times. Sometimes a bitch just wants to go on Tik Tok and laugh, but I can’t because everybody is worried about their love life, oh my God. In the end, all I’m left with wondering is, is there more? (In my Drake voice, *sorry*)
This is coming from someone who has probably seen every romantic comedy ever, who cannot read a book for fun if romance isn’t even teased in it, and who cannot stop talking about boys. I reread my journal, old notes, and rewatch old video diaries and it feels like the topic of romance takes up about 75% of that content. I can’t help but feel…bored.
This is not to say that romance is overrated and not important, I think being in love romantically and having those interactions with one (or three whatever you’re into) people can be so beautiful, but I can’t help but feel like there’s something missing.
I think love should be at the center of our universe. I think there can be no goodness, no hope, no freedom, without love. However, that love does not necessarily have to be romantic. I don’t even want to say platonic love because that feels so cold, love itself should represent warmth and community.
I think I’ve heard enough about romance. It is everywhere. Every reality tv show I have watched this year has dealt with people trying to find love. We are all so secretly desperate for love because we are deprived of it in our everyday interactions. We are deprived of it starting from the way our government systems work all the way down to the people at the bottom who deal with those effects. Authentic love is so far removed from the equation of our lives that we think the only way we can seek its truest forms is via romance, but even then we are told that romantic love has to look a certain way.
It feels like in an ideal world your life would look something like this:
You live
You pine for love
You get a job
You fall in love
You date
You get married
You buy a house
You have kids
You raise your kids
They grow up
You die.
Typing that out I can’t even lie and say that doesn’t sound like a peaceful life lmao, but it feels so formulaic. (I know the devils advocates are like “you travel with your partner”, “you eat good food together”, yeah yeah yeah but we’re just talking skin and bones.)
I play sims and that’s essentially how my sims live, I get so bored sometimes (I’m not a wicked whims girly). If that’s what life is supposed to look like ideally in a perfect world and I do that and I’m still bored, what the fuck is really the point. It's like you live to get married, but then what? I’ll tell you what though, my sims never really have friends outside of their significant other. In my sims game my sims barely leave their home lot and you really have to make an effort to have your sims have friends. I feel like the game—The Sims 4, isn’t really designed to maintain a community within the game. Everything feels hollow, there is no love. There are so many descriptors in game to describe someone’s relationship on a romantic level, yet so few to describe one on a “platonic” level. The highest you can get platonically is “Best Friend”, which is so…dry. Why can’t my best friend in game also be my soulmate?
Anyways, I think our fixation on love should be expanded past a romantic level. I want to be loved by my community, I want to put love into my community. I want to be loved by my friends, I want to give love into my friendships. I want to feel loved by establishments that are supposed to be here to protect me and represent my best interest. I want to love my environment; I want all of us to be more intentional and caring for the entities around us that aren’t human because we are not the only ones that matter (That’s that ENVS major coming out).
I could go on about this, I could probably write a thesis about this, but overall I just want to say that love is not monolithic in the sense that it is only embodied via romantic, familial, or even human to human love. I want to experience so much love in my life and give so much love out, but not just in one form to one person until I die.
Especially seeing the way these niggas get down, did y’all see the forty year old man that took this woman to the parking lot of Popeyes for their first date and didn’t even buy her Popeyes?! Good, BYE!
At the end of the day, it isn’t our fault and I’m not casting stones. I love LOVE! I love seeing people in love and I do hope to experience it, I don’t want to sound like a hater. However, I do think that collectively we owe ourselves the responsibility to expand what we know to be love. Romance may seem the most accessible because it’s what we’ve been taught, but honestly we are owed love in so many other ways. I really do suggest you read all bout love by bell hooks, I fear it changed my life a bit. My biggest gripe about living in this world has become the fact that when given the chance we treat one another so horribly. When given the seat of power and the option to choose between love or continued oppression we choose oppression and harm to others. I don’t like that, at all.
I really hope one day to live in a world full of love. Love does not mean no conflict, no doom, no gloom—it just means holding each other accountable, taking everything into consideration, and keeping everyone’s best interest in mind. (And not letting someone take you for a sucker romantically or platonically, because the parking lot of Popeyes girl? I understand why, I do, but please be serious! She deserves better.)
In the most basic of terms, romance is not the only thing that signifies love. This is an attack on how romance is commodified and packaged under the guise of love. Almost to the point where the two are inseparable, they have become synonyms. We settle for less because for some of us that is the only way we may experience love in this lifetime, so I do get it, but if we as a society were taught 1. how to love and 2. that love is expansive, I believe all of our systems would become a lot healthier.
Tomorrow, I will most definitely go back to watching the movies, listening to the music reading the books that sell me love and heartbreak. What can I say? They have found their target demo, but I hope we all slowly, but surely find more to love.
P.S
This is a very vast topic and of course I didn’t cover all the caveats of this discussion!
However, I think you should read this for a sidebar I wanted to include.
“When we are loving we openly and honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment, and trust.”
- bell hooks, all about love
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