NEW LOVE
I like to think I have a lot of skills, but understanding love is not one of them.
Nowadays we don't just have valentine's day, we have "gal"entine's day and "pal"entine's day—like how many more alternative names can we make to keep ourselves from admitting that we have no valentine?
But this isn't a story about how I am one of those 'ugh, I'm boycotting this hallmark holiday because it's stupid,'—because let's be real, if it gives me a day to freely eat chocolate and buy flowers then by all means lets go all out—but it's rather about the idea of love, you know perceptions, expectations and feelings in the digital age and how it has all changed the game.
photo contributed by Pexel
Love isn't black and white, no pun intended. There's no manual on how to fall in love or how to stay happy forever together. But I think the harsh reality is that when we see love portrayed on social media or in movies, that we tend to compare our own lives and feelings toward the images we see on a screen. (And in my latest Facebook post, others agree with me.)
I see so many people in my generation and the one after, really trying to grasp love—not just the word, but also an image.
Love is a complex connection. It's not certain by any means, but I think it has the ability to make you feel free like you're on top of the world, but it can also make you feel as though you're suffocating. And nowadays, it's easier to confuse feelings and jump to conclusions because we need to be instantly gratified.
Because of our fast-paced lifestyles, communication is so much easier and quicker than ever with texting and social media, but it also creates a barrier for true intimacy and connection. Undoubtedly, social media has connected us more than we could've ever imagined, but it has also made things even more complicated.
We start to romanticize waking up to our partner with tousled hair and just the right sun peaking through our aesthetically pleasing bedroom with our handsome man cuddling up to us, or some of us take another route and search for the passionate, mad love seen in the music video, We Found Love.
Mandy Len Catron, an author, memoirist and Ted Talk speaker, said, "When I first started researching romantic love, I found these madness metaphors everywhere. The history of Western culture is full of language that equates love to mental illness. These are just a few examples. William Shakespeare: 'Love is merely a madness,' from 'As You Like It.' Friedrich Nietzsche: 'There is always some madness in love.' 'Got me looking, got me looking so crazy in love,' by the great philosopher, Beyonce Knowles."
I think we see passion as a necessity in love—that you're not really feeling anything if you're not drowning yourself in a love like Noah and Allie in "The Notebook."
And that's what were missing—we are missing true connection and we're not willing to wait for it, and if we don't find it then we feel like something is wrong with us.
Now, instead of reading social cues and body language, we judge our connection on if our partner posts a photo of us or if they commented something cute—we're then left with questioning if they really love us or have feelings for someone else.
Digital intimacy then gets confused with true intimacy—we create an online persona that makes us feel as if our lives are full of success and love. And let's be real, we all alter our appearance on social media. Even though some of us are more discreet than others, it still doesn't escape the fact that we're trying to gain some sort of connection.
But maybe it's about changing our perceptions on love and what love genuinely means. Catron mentioned that our metaphors shape our reality, so instead of passionately falling into love, what if we generously step into love.
Our view on love has become askew, so I wanted to know some opinions on love and what it means to others.
I posted 6 questions on Facebook about love ranging from compatibility to passion to how much effort we should put into a relationship. I think we can love someone with all of our hearts and want the best for them, but if we aren't cohesive, we won't work—I don't mean liking the same music or food.
I think love is meant to be built on emotional connection, mental compatibility and physical attraction. I think you can love someone, but if you aren't on the same page with those three concepts, then creating a potential life with them will be exhausting.
I posed another question on Facebook, as well: What are three adjectives to describe love?
The adjectives consisted of a lot of bitterness, as well as some beauty. And I think we've got love wrong. It's not easy by any means, but I think in order to find it we need not be in search of it.
Creating love starts with ourselves, I think. Learning to feel complete is the first step, but loving ourselves can be a daunting task, I know.
Some of us may be bitter, rushing, craving, faking, breaking, pretending or grasping on the idea of love—but we need to remember that love holds us together.
Love isn't just a photo of kissing our spouse or posting about the flowers our partner bought us, it's about the stranger who smiled at you today or the mom holding her daughters' hand while crossing the street.
It's natural we crave connection, and as much as some of us would like to not admit (considering how much bitterness I saw in the comments), love is needed to really thrive in our existence, but it has to start with us. Instead of defining it and trying to scrape up as much affection from social media as we can, we need to understand that love is transcendent—it comes in many different shades and forms.
What is your perception on love?