This was all stimulated by a strange conversation with my housemate. We were discussing Love Actually, which is rather a contentious issue with Brits, I have found, and I happened to mention how rediclous the story-lines following Colin Firth was; he and a girl, unable to communicate, fall in love "at first sight."
Immediately my house mate leaps in: " love at first sight exists" she asserts. I look at her for a second.
"Attraction at first sight exists" I counter. "Love takes a long time"
She doesn't get it. "I fell in love with my boyfriend when i first met him."
I don't want to tell her this is impossible, so i make some noncommittal remark, like: "oh, really?"
"Maybe you've never been in love" she decides.
This is the point at which I would like to take from. Firstly, I would like to say that yes, i have been what would be described as "in love", head over bloody heels in love, and no, it didn't happen when my eyes first fell on his gangly form. In fact, we'd known each other for years and it crept up when I wasn't really paying attention, and didn't even become real love until we'd been dating for months. What did become "in love" was seated in friendship and has lasted 4 break-ups, hospital trips, family arguments and university, and I'm pretty sure we'll be friends for life. My housemates "love at first sight" was her manager at her first shop job and has lasted a year but she is sure they will be married the day she graduates, her first boyfriend. I do not want to be skeptical around those who decide to live life differently than mine, but I find that we do not agree what "love" is.
Love. Love is what society is obsessed with. Teenagers moon over it, TV shows breed off it, newspapers fill sides of paper on celebs and Kate Middleton. Every film gets a bit more interesting with a bit of romance, all the popular songs question love, beg for love, hate love, love love. And not family love, usually. Romantic love.
I've been rather interested in romantic love for a while, the obsessive creation with it on the media, our own inward obsession with it. Every time I gt home from holiday or uni, my friends light up. First question:
"So, do you have a boyfriend yet? Any boy action?"
"...No"
"oh." The light goes off. I could continue to say I have found some exciting wonderful friends, joined an occupation, traveled and laughed and got drunk and learnt crazy things and that I went free running, or that I taught myself the ukulele, but that simply is not as interesting as whether or not I have paired myself with a male. Its the same with my parents. They inquire eagerly if i date people, seem confused when i shrug. I have friends who are guys. I fancy them sometimes, they fancy me sometimes. I'm not really focused on love because I'm busy living life hard. This seems as oddity to them.
"When I was your age, I had lots of boyfriends" My mum tells me. "Maybe your generation is different"
Maybe i am singing a lone song, and am actually just a freak, but to me, romantic love is an idea formed by society and continued by media. It is an idea that is over the top, exaggerated, unrealistic, empty, and destructive. teen magazines tell you how to get a boyfriend, films and books follow characters who desperately chase partners, newspapers gleefully follow famous break ups, glorify couples who are romantic; Valentines day is a sickening rush of hearts and the idea of love conquering all, love being the total answer to everything; and if you aren't included in this special sicken making day, you are not part of the best bit of society.
Romantic love is fettishised, it is a sacred space no-one dares attack. Romantic love is the answer to everything. With the constant refreshing and recreation of this ideology on the media, we all buy into this desire; by ourselves, we are nothing, not whole. But with the sunset picture of love and the perfect partner, we are "completed." I find this sick in so many ways, particularly that by ourselves, we someone have "failed". "she's on the shelf", tabloids crow, as a successful older woman is single. By not having a partner, by not "winning" the love game, by not conforming to strange ideals of reproduction which seem to relate perversely to the bloody church wanting to control who does what- then we have failed.
But the love they sell us, the glossy ideal, it's empty. in films, beautiful people meet, exchange a few awkward sexually tense words and a few moments later are engaged in perfect and steamy sex where both orgasm, and by the end, against all odds, both dreamily gaze at each other, their love bright and fake. This is what people expect while growing up; an Edward Cullen look a like, a person diving in to notice how wonderful you are, to tell you, you are wonderful. There is no you in there; you can only be wonderful when THEY tell you so.
I won't get started on how wrong films portray sex, and how destructive that is for generations of kids engaging in their first time, but I will talk about this "lover"; the other who perfectly looks after you, the man who will die for you, know everything you want, who can make you orgasm every time. Who is this? This fake "love at first sight" male? Is this what my housemate saw when she met her manager for the first time? I find it very amusing imagining her meeting her manager and as soon as she saw his face, suddenly realizing he was her one and only, imagining her shock and happiness. I assume he felt the same. Maybe they had sex on the stock room floor a few moments later. Who knows. Joking aside, this love at first sight male, the "perfect" other is a dangerous construction of what love is. I actually believe that the rise in divorce relates to this creation of the prefect mate in the media; we are told we need true love, we are shown true love where they don't argue, they are always engaged in frenzied sex and high-energy japes, they laugh all the time, they always know what the other wants...
But come on, come on come ON, love- REAL love- has nothing to do with this ideal. Real love is hard work, it's tears and arguments and then the compromises we make to live with each other. Its the other one always leaving the toilet seat up and getting drunk too much and not talking about feelings and getting on your nerves but still even through this, loving each other, still working out how to live together despite being two different people with different ideas and ways to live. real love is picking him off the street after he's drunk too much and got paralytic, taking him to hospital, letting him sick up on you, patting his head, and the next morning shouting at him really loud so his hangover hurts. Real love is him forgiving me for deciding I didn't want to use the door on his parents house, so throwing rocks at his expensive new window instead and breaking it. Real love is the two of us farting at each other while eating eggs and reading the newspaper to avoid talking. The picture postcard image of romantic love has nothing to do with this, with reality.
And it isn't half as great either, I bet.
But then again, as my flatmate says; maybe I have no idea. You never know, maybe I'll be picked up by a David Tennant look-alike, bewitched by his humor, swept up in the fact he wants to talk to ME- little freaky me- and then we can engage in steamy kissing and have sex behind the desk, and then, after a few idealistic dates with sunsets and everything, we can get married and have 2 beaut kids, and I can die in his arms with his lips telling me how I saved and him and changed him and he loves me. Probably i'll look back at this and laugh at myself. Right?
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