A love letter to Romance

Opinions about the Universe - Part 2

Hey Stranger,

Romantic love first appeared to me in romantic comedies. I binge watched thousands of them as a young teenage girl. Give me any hallmark movie and I’ll predict the entire plot in five minutes and classify them into tropes. Though a lot of them are just rich, city man goes to country, meets cute woman with family business, gets engaged after ten days.

These movies shaped how I related to and thought about love. How to give love and pursue it, the importance of it and the sweetness of gestures. I grew up to be a hopeless romantic. I love love letters, sweet gifts and romantic dates. I’m the type of person who reads a book such as “A lover’s discourse” and almost cries.

However, this also put unrealistic expectations in my mind. I was convinced there would be love at first sight, I’d find my soulmate and they would complete me and make my life perfect. I sincerely believed in a fairy tale love, although this was mostly subconscious. I only became aware of these demands once I realized that they are total bullshit.

Let me explain before you crush me with red roses and chocolate:

Love at first sight

What is love? 🎶Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more. 🎶 (I had to, I’m sorry.)

Attraction at first sight certainly exists. Some people just draw our attention. Maybe it’s lust or chemistry or because they simply remind you of home. But that is not love. Would you die for that hottie you’ve met just now? Do you trust them? Text them that you got home safely? Probably not. I do not deny that you can feel deeply infatuated, fascinated and enamored about a near-stranger but love is both a feeling and a choice.

Love means settling into a relationship with somebody, respecting the fragility and vulnerability of loving and being loved while affirming you will handle it gently. Love is understanding somebody almost better than yourself while respecting that your beloved will ultimately remain a mystery to you. Love is sensing the dreams that seem so out of reach they don't dare to say them out loud but you know they can do it, and will support them every step. Love is shaping each other, bit by bit, and this does not happen in an instant.

Fate may bring us together but we have the responsibility of turning that initial connection into love.

The soulmate myth

The idea of a soulmate sounds sweet and romantic af. I get somebody who’s perfect for me and I’m perfect for them and finding that person equals a guaranteed lifelong & fulfilling love? Fuck yeah please. But once we look closer it actually sounds really weird and unhealthy. Yk, like Emma and Jacob’s relationship in Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children? Girl didn’t got daddy issues she got granddaddy issues. (in all seriousness I personally find the trilogy really entertaining, if you want a good YA fantasy go read that)

You expect that your relationship will work out, must work out. If you are in a toxic or loveless relationship, does that mean you have to stay? And if you break up are you doomed to forego future love? It also argues that this person completes you, meaning you were lacking beforehand and needed saving. Being in a good, loving relationship is awesome, a major boost to happiness. You’re single and that kinda sucks because you feel really good in a relationship? Understandable, I’m rooting for you buddy. You don’t need to be perfectly healed or have your shit 100% together. You can also grow and heal with another person. You can have wounds, and mental health problems, and personal struggles, but the point is that's really okay and your partner can support you, but not save you. They are just a person too.

If they’re perfect for you, you’re also idealizing them. Instead of loving the person, you love the idea of them. Once the truth comes out and you see that this perfection was purely an illusion, what will then happen? We all want to be accepted for who we are. If somebody only sees us as the fulfillment of a fantasy are we then truly loved or only the placeholder?

Isn’t the fragility of love a major component of its beauty? The fact that it could have gone another way? This makes love beautifully fragile, something to cherish and nourish. Makes every couples origin story a grandiose love saga. Instead of viewing love as something you’re entitled to, that you can demand and take for granted, you see it as a gift. If you say “I love you” that is a verbal commitment. It’s an external manifestation and declaration of the love you already implicitly showed through actions, words, and gifts. You can tell your partner that you love them but without any other signs, it will only remain a platitude.

Yes, there are better partners out there

One conflict that often appears in romantic relationships is the problem of envy. Specifically, the fear that you‘re not good enough and once your partner realizes that, they‘ll leave you for somebody better. I understand the fear. When you‘re committed to somebody, you give your absolute best, pour so much energy and time into the relationship. It seems only logical that if your partner leaves, the product was unsatisfactory, meaning you.

This is probably a side effect from how capitalism has seeped into romance. We market ourselves on dating apps, swipe until we find somebody satisfactory and if that person doesn’t uphold all your expectations? Don’t worry, maybe you‘ll like the next person. It also coupled the term “being romantic“ with materialism = muy cash spent.

The inherent conflict though is that you then need to be perfect so the relationship can remain intact. You‘re obliged to play a game where you must think your partner is 100% perfect and compatible with you and there‘s no person as good as them. But that‘s a lie. We‘re not perfect. And let’s face it, there are people out there that your partner also finds hot and who might be ”better“. There are eight billion people on this planet. The odds are quite high that there‘s at least one other person out there that would be more compatible, would have more of the desirable qualities and less of the loathsome ones.

But first of all, this doesn’t fucking matter.

We are already hyper-conscious about our performance. Is it beneficial if we do the same with romance too? Because love is not a search for the perfect candidate or build-a-bear romantic edition. It‘s settling down into a relationship with somebody who is good enough. Not perfect. They will be flawed, they will disappoint you and sometimes really annoy you, but they will be good enough. Somebody where you look at them, and you see everything you love about them, everything you get annoyed about, and say “I love you“. Not I love you*, but I love you. The totality of someone.

We could hop from person to person, trying to find best but there’s no ceiling for perfection. Would we ever be satisfied and happy in a relationship with such a mindset? Or would there always remain a shred of doubt in the back of our mind, asking ourselves if we made the right decision, if there might not be better options out there?

And secondly, that‘s not why you love your partner anyway.

When we ask somebody why they love their partner (which is not a question I’ve often heard) and they answer ”Because they are smart, kind, attractive etc.” I would say the answer is incomplete. This description fits many people beside their partner, it seems too vague. It’s more of an abbreviation, a useful shorthand. We don’t love somebody because of general characteristics but rather because of the specific expressions shown in this person.

Let’s say you have a partner called John. You don't like John because he’s intelligent. You love John because he is John-intelligent. You love John because of his specific sense of humor, not because he’s funny. You don't love him because he has a sweet smile, but because it's his specific smile with this specific curving of the lips, with these specific dimples on his cheeks. You love him because of the specific experience you share. Because by building and loving together, you intertwined your life a braid. Appearing as a union while the individual strands remain visible.

Love does not lie in generalities, but in the specifics, which is why we say loving somebody is knowing them.

Why marriage is fucking sick

“Marriage is merely an institution whose purpose mainly consists of strengthening political and economic ties. 30-40% of marriages end in divorce, which is very harmful toward ones finances and mental health. Why should marriage even matter?”

I agree. Spitting facts right there, buddy. The specific institution of marriage might not matter unless for legal rights & tax benefits. Alas, not having that would suck. But the recent idea or spirit of marriage holds significance.

The fact that we don’t see any friends with tax benefits kind of shows the sacredness that’s still being described to marriage today. It’s not the institution itself which is sacred, but rather the love you show through it. All your loved ones assemble so that you can proclaim the adoration you posses for that person. You declare that you want them lifelong, nobody else. That you will always be there for them, during the holidays but also on an average Tuesday. Of course, you could also just stay in a relationship and argue that’s implicit, but alone the symbol of having a ceremony is powerful. You commit wholeheartedly, in a way which makes it very hard to back out. It’s a costly and genuine signal that you’ve found your person, and damn it you don’t wanna lose them.

It’s not beautiful because of the happy end. ‘Cause there isn’t one. The best case scenario is that you stay happily married until one of you dies. The phrase “until death do us part” is quite clear in that. The reality can range from your partner/you dying prematurely to the mediocrity of a loveless, unhappy marriage or the extreme of a long, painful divorce with kids involved. Your spouse might die suddenly without a proper goodbye. Maybe after a fight, your lover torn away from you with “shut up” as the last words instead of “I love you”. I want my last words to be “I love you”. I don’t want to leave this world while letting my partner, friend or parent remain with such a regret. So even if it might not be the last words they speak to me, it will be mine, and I hope they will know I meant it.

In sum, we do not know what will happen. Whether one of us will develop health problems, get fired or have parents who need caretakers. We have no idea how we’ll be marked by future experiences, which new values we might acquire or goals we want to reach. We marry their present self but also all the potentialities of this person. We only know that there will be love now and pain later. Buy now, pay later model.

Love is knowing that there is no happy end, that there will be pain and work, that there are 10000 different reasons that should hold us back from loving so crazily while looking at this person and saying:”Fuck this shit, you’re worth it”

Best wishes,

Somebody