Is Love Dead, Or Are We Dead Inside?
Happy Wednesday everyone! My heart has been heavy this last week and a half. I’ve been completely sucked into the darkness of the news, and have done my best to maintain boundaries around it so that I don’t completely lose myself. I’ve had difficult conversations with friends and family as we try to navigate our fears, differing beliefs, and how our beliefs are evolving as time progresses.
Sometimes I feel confident, and other times hopelessly confused. With so many loud opinions, coming from various forces in my life, it’s hard to know what is true and what isn’t. I want to do what’s right, and, above all, want to advocate for our collective humanity, but it’s hard to know the right way to do that. It’s been difficult to think about anything else, and I feel a pressure to constantly be ingesting news, and talking about it. I feel guilty whenever I take a break from it because I worry that if I’m not looking at the horrors at all hours of the day that I’m somehow failing humanity.
Someone gave me good advice on this though. They gently reminded me that I cannot care for other people if I do not care for myself first. They also told me that creating content that isn’t related to the conflict could provide a needed sense of relief for people. This latter point especially clicked for me because I had already noticed within myself that seeing funny or heartwarming content over these days had helped me to not completely lose it.
All of this is to say that we need both. We need people to keep talking, and sharing their stories, and we also need videos of dogs and babies doing silly things. So I’m going to try my best to honor that advice, and hope that whatever I write here does provide relief (and maybe a smile or chuckle from you if I’m lucky).
This week we’re talking about loooove, baby. And we’re talking about how depraved a lot of modern dating culture is. But you know me: I always try to weave a hopeful twist into everything that I create because that is the core of who I am. Despite the pain of this life, there is always light if you know how to look for it.
I always knew I had an interest in writing, and making art, about love, dating, and relationships, but refrained for a long time. I worried that being open about my longing for romantic love, all while I experienced rejection, awkward dates, and unfulfilling sex, would be an act of social suicide. If I wrote about these experiences with rawness and honesty, I feared it would reveal to the world (and to myself) how disappointing, pathetic, and often boring my love life could be. So why am I here now? Well darlings, a beautiful thing happens (and only increases) as you age where you laugh to yourself and say, “fuck it.”
The act of saying “fuck it” to life acknowledges that many (most?) of our life circumstances are not worth getting worked up over. The “fuck it” reminds me that one day I will no longer have this life, so I might as well do the things that make my heart buzz and twinkle. You could think of this phrase as meaning, “what’s the worst that could happen?” Or, “You only live once…”
Miraculously, and seemingly paradoxically, by saying “fuck it” we are suddenly in the presence of magic. We dive headfirst into our personal pool of fears, and we watch ourselves do and say things we wouldn’t have ever dreamed of doing or saying before. And somehow, we’re still alive afterwards.
Luckily, my love life hasn’t been all bad. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced a couple of deeply meaningful and memorable relationships in my 20’s, and I am grateful to those people and to the memories we shared. I’ve lived through the floods of serotonin that the early throes of infatuation provides but, anyone who is acquainted with these feelings knows that they, like all feelings, are impermanent.
Growing up, I considered myself to be a modern gal. I was sporty, and took pride in my strength. In my aesthetics, I enjoyed wearing the feminine trends of the day, but also enjoyed the subversive nature of wearing more masculine styles. As a child when a family member joked about me marrying rich one day I said, “What if I’m the one who makes more money?” to which they said, “touché.”
I never possessed a natural knack for academics, but I studied hard to get good grades, and always did the extra credit. I got my first job as soon as it was legal, put a mountain of extracurriculars on myself, and always had multiple groups of friends. I took pride in expressing my drive, in showing my independence, and in proving to myself that I could do it all (even if I sometimes burnt myself out in the process).
But there was always an elephant in the room that made me feel like I was in conflict with this girlboss energy, and it was that I was obsessed with romance. I thought about relationships, and my yearning for relationships, constantly. I often day dreamed about being in a loving relationship, getting married, and having children. It all seemed so beautiful to me, but it also felt desperately out of reach. An extremely insecure tween and teen, I was convinced that no one would ever like me enough to love me (let alone date me).
Apart from kissing a friend in first grade, I didn’t have another “first” kiss until I was 17 which, at the time, felt ancient. And that kiss only happened because I was at a dance at a youth group conference, and I forced myself to make it happen. I was going to college soon, and I wanted to somewhat know what I was doing before then — at the very least in the kissing department. I had wanted to be prepared in many other ways before going to college as well, but those cards didn’t fall in my favor.
I’m not going to lie: being a romantic teenager with raging hormones sucked. I felt like I had no outlet for any of these feelings, and so I did research. I read Seventeen, Cosmo, and hundreds of forums online about relationships. I watched hours of YouTube videos about dating and relationship advice, and loved to watch (and re-watch) Jane Austen period pieces. I thought maybe if I ingested enough knowledge about romance that I could crack the code and experience the relationship of my dreams.
This actually did work in some ways, but it also harmed me in probably just as many. I learned a lot about flirting tactics, and the types of things men found attractive (as this was before I embraced bisexuality), and used this knowledge to my advantage. My late 20’s have been illuminating for me to experience because they’ve exposed just how distorted my perspective on love was.
Because, for most of my life, I viewed love as something that I had to do certain things to deserve. I had to look a certain way, act a certain way, make the other person feel a certain way. I had to earn love, and love was hard work. I was convinced that if I didn’t do these things well that I would be destined to be alone forever. The core problem is that love became a performance. It also became a game. I viewed this as normal however because I was surrounded by it.
I observed how differently friends would act around crushes, and how much they would try to embody the type of person they thought their crush would like. There are thousands of storylines with this plot too. Take Grease for example (hilariously one I watched on repeat as a kid). Danny tries to change for Sandy, and then Sandy changes for Danny. And don’t even get me started on the “glow up” trope where the nerd gets a makeover, and then ends up with one of the resident hotties at school. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel sacrifices her mermaid nature, and leaves her entire family, so that she can be with Prince Eric.
In many love stories, hetero ones at least, one person often gives up key parts of their identity in order for the relationship to work and — who’s surprised — it’s usually the female character. But these kinds of expectations happen for gay couples as well. In a “real life” example, the Netflix reality series, The Ultimatum is predicated on the idea that one member of a partnership will have to change their mind about wanting, or not wanting, marriage because, if they don’t, it’s over.
The problem with a lot of dating “advice” out there is that so much of it is based on manipulation and stereotypes. We ask ourselves questions about the best ways to get someone to like us, or the best way to approach that will lead to the lowest level of embarrassment. Showing a lot of interest is risky, because we could be rejected, but showing too little interest is also risky because it could mean nothing will happen at all. Common advice is also rife with tropes and assumptions. “Women are like this, gay men are like that, straight men are like this, lesbian women are like that,” as if it could ever be that simple.
Becoming the person you think someone else will like necessarily involves inauthenticity. It also requires a rejection of your personal boundaries. I recall when friends and I in high school and college timed our text responses to crushes — because we didn’t want to respond too quickly — lest we appear too interested or eager. I also knew quite a few folks who had sex with partners they weren’t yet comfortable with because they feared saying no would end the other person’s interest in them. I also knew people, myself included, who subjected themselves to unclear and communication-barren relationships because it felt better than having nothing at all.
Why do relationships which require our inauthenticity even exist? Because we have been brainwashed into believing that not having a romantic partner is one of the worst fates you can have. And here’s the thing: I’m a romantic. I’m a big believer in the power of romantic love and how it can enhance our lives. But I certainly do not believe that being in relationships which feel empty, abusive, or where one person must sacrifice fundamental parts of themselves, are somehow better than being alone.
The truth I sink into more through the years is that the only path to true love is to embrace who you are, and to fall in love with yourself — especially with the parts you think are unloveable. It’s been a nice realization to have, and it has thankfully changed the way that I approach dating. I am not magically now immune to the ill-effects of it however. I believe that all of humanity longs for “unconditional” love, but how many of us sit down to think about what that really means, or how to get there?
Modern dating feels like a constant state of emotional whiplash. In NYC at least, it feels like many people are looking for all of the benefits of being in a relationship, without the natural challenges that they come with. They want something, “casual,” “uncomplicated,” “drama-free,” as if human beings have ever been capable of not being dramatic. What a lot of these words really mean is that there will be very little communication in these relationships. Oh sorry sorry, not a relationship, that word is far too serious. These days, the emotionally depraved call them “situationships.”
For my readers that haven’t been in the dating scene for a while, you might not know what a situationship is, and consider me envious if this is the first time you’re hearing of it. This is what Google’s A.I. had to say about it.
Situationships sound nice in theory. You can experience intimacy and sex, but you (in theory) don’t have to deal with any uncomfortable conversations that are inherent to relationships. This gets dicey very quickly. If you’re really unlucky, you transition to another stage that most people are familiar with, which is “ghosting.” Imagine talking to and spending time with someone for long spans of time, and then one day never hearing from them again with zero explanation. The ghosted will often go through many emotions like confusion and hurt. The ghoster may feel guilt, but modern technology provides an easy and convenient way to disappear.
When I was in college I was in a situationship, though I don’t think I had the term at that time, and it lasted about three months. He was a guy I met in one of my film classes, and we always looked at each other in class. At a Halloween party, we finally sealed the deal, and then started hooking up whenever we had free moments. It was the first time in my life that I had ever had good sex, and I was addicted to the thrills. This situation began to weigh on me after a time though because I wanted more from our rendezvous, and my feelings of emptiness grew.
I had been avoiding the conversation for months because I didn’t want our fun to end, but eventually I asked the fated questions, “What are we,” and, “What are we doing?” This boy pretended he had no idea what I was asking, and tried to change the subject. That was the end of us. He quickly became distant, and our texting/talking dried up soon after. This pained me quite a bit at the time, but it felt like there was nothing I could do.
His lack of an answer, and eventual disappearance, was loud and clear. A few months later, I found out that he had gone “official” with someone else. That hurt too, but it also made perfect sense. He was more than happy to have me around to fulfill carnal desires, but only on the condition that I didn’t ask him to do any extra work. I wished that he could have been honest and told me that he didn’t like me like that, or that he liked someone else, but I suppose that was too scary for him. We were in our early 20’s at the time though — surely his behavior could be attributed to that?
Nope. I’m sad to report that daters in their 30s and 40s still do shit like this. Just earlier this year, I was ghosted by someone I had been seeing for a couple of months. No longer 21 years old though, instead of simply letting it go, I sent some very strongly worded text messages which all essentially boiled down to the message — “Fuck you. Why couldn’t you have a conversation with me instead of ghosting me like a coward?”
That’s the core problem though. It’s so rare to meet daters, especially ones you meet online, who are completely upfront about their feelings. Because the vast majority of people do not know how to have these conversations, they resort to cruelty, feigned ignorance, or trickery because it feels easier. And unfortunately, many people blame themselves for being ghosted because of the toxic messaging society teaches us about love.
The messaging is contradictory and unattainable. I’ll give one example, though there are many. One piece of advice many of us receive is to be interested, but not too interested because that could be a turn off. We learn that having the “upper hand” in relationships is one of the most important things we can achieve. We learn that we must play games of cat and mouse. We play these silly games that are somehow justified in the name of love — but that isn’t real love.
We learn all of these games from the time we’re children with messaging like, “He’s only mean to you because he likes you.” We also learn that it is embarrassing to loudly express our interest for someone else. The term, “simp” is one I take issue with. It refers to people who do “too much” for the object of their affection — as if showing care and interest is something to be ridiculed. The subtext in the definition is that the affection is not reciprocated, but this term is almost always used in a way that assumes it is not reciprocated, even if it is. In any case though, simping is seen as embarrassing and desperate.
We tie ourselves into pretzel knots to avoid the pain of rejection, but rejection is a natural part of life. It cannot be avoided, and it certainly cannot be avoided when embarking on the path to living in a state of love.
I wish that more people expressed their love loudly because it’s beautiful. And, in my opinion, rather than being worthy of ridicule, it is something to admire and aspire to because it is incredibly brave. It is brave to show how much we like someone while knowing that they may not feel the same way. It is brave to open our hearts and keep them open despite whatever pain we may experience. What isn’t brave is ghosting. What isn’t brave is keeping your emotions close to your chest and never showing the people in your life how you really feel.
I remember my brother used to flirt with a lot of women. Most of them would reject him, and I always felt embarrassed for him and sometimes wished he would stop trying. As I have aged though, I realize just how amazing it was that he kept trying. Despite being rejected, he still went for it. That is bravery, and I hope to continue his bravery as a way to honor him.
I try to be loud with my love, and I also try to express myself with gentleness when I do not return the same feelings as someone else. I think we all owe that to one another. And I get it. It’s difficult and uncomfortable to have to tell someone that you don’t feel the same way, or do not see a future. Learning how to do this, however, is an expression of love, and it only helps us tap into more of it. We give one another a beautiful gift when we are loud with our love. Even if it isn’t compatible, living in the flow of love is a wonderful thing.
Many people hear the adage “relationships are hard work,” and don’t want to do work. I can completely understand this perspective because the very word “work” brings to mind tasks we would rather not do. Doing our day jobs, even ones we’re extremely passionate about, is often draining. Cleaning our homes is the Sisyphean task that keeps on giving. Working out is a joy for some, and a total dread for others. So when we learn that we have to work hard to make money, to keep our lives organized, and to maintain our bodies, more work is the last thing we want to add into our lives.
While it’s true that maintaining relationships does take continuous effort and intention, the type of work that is required is very different from the work we are used to associating with. In relationships the “work” is communicating our wants, needs, and desires. It is also communicating when our feelings are hurt, and when we do not understand or need clarification. It is keeping our hearts open even when we disagree. It is trusting ourselves to show up in our authenticity, and trusting that the other person will as well.
I think that many people, even the ones who ghost, are actually starved for love. This starvation is obvious to see in our movies, music, and literature. We all want connections that feel good to us, and make us feel good about ourselves. The inherent problem though is that, like work, we come to view love in a capitalist framework.
We rank people based on their relationship “value,” and we tend to focus more on getting love than on giving it. And guess what? Love begets love. If we cannot give it, how can we ever learn how to receive it? If we cannot tell someone we love them, or even just like them, how can we ever hope to have it reflected back to us?
I believe that we all ought to practice being more loud with our love. Sometimes love is the literal act of telling someone you love them, but it is also a gazillion other things. It is being a listening ear. It is cooking a meal. It is hugs, high fives, and pats on the back. It is cleaning. It is quality time. It is volunteering. It is coming back to love again and again, even when we feel the desire to withhold it. Love is not a force that is meant to be withheld. It is meant to be shared, over and over again, and more love will keep growing from it.
Love is an active process. It requires that we give. It requires that we communicate. It requires that we have faith. And it requires that we have trust. There is no true love without vulnerability. I hope it goes without saying, but romantic relationships are not the highest form of love. We can (and should) practice this love in our friendships, family, and even work relationships. We all deserve care, and we have the power to start chains of care. When we do this, we show others that living in a state of love it is a mighty fine way to exist.
Love you all (like, seriously) and I’ll see you next week! ❤