Love, Or Something Not Like It

What is there for a near perpetual single man to say on love? A lot more than you'd think.

Let's begin with what it's not. We'll return to Gordon-Levitt for this one.

The rising expectation, whether it be perpetrated from Twilight or Romeo/Juliet, Sixteen Candles or the Notebook. The expectation that seems to have been perpetrated by a lot of this media, is a hopeless devotion, a dependence, a need for another person. I'm no expert on what media influences our understanding of love, but I do know that a lot of this is a very dangerous thing.

Full disclosure though I have absolutely bought into it in my lifetime.

My first relationship, in fact, was driven by the same expectation. We had to spend all of our time together, something we both did without question. We had to ask no questions because they were unneccesary, we were in love and love was special and ours was unique and love love love. Of course my friends weren't fans of her. My parents hated her. We were not healthy for each other, but we were in love. Love is blind. Love is pure.

That love was crazy. And men tend to say that when it's not correct, as in 'we broke up and she cried, she's crazy yo.' No. She had some serious issues. And I did to. Again, full disclosure. We both had a lot to work out that we ignored because love.

Disclosure done. What I'm trying to get at here is that it's hard to ignore those media influences. They seem to promise so much happiness. Someone who gets you completely and who wants to spend all of their time with and who you want to spend all of your time with and how could you ever meet someone like that and not get so attached that when they're gone you mourn their absence and the thought of not being with them is just too agonizing not to bear?

There is a huge difference between loving someone and loving an idea. In those relationships where a person's complete wellbeing is dependent on another, it's not loving someone, it's loving an idea. This, to return to (500) days of summer is how we see Levitt's character. His entire being centers around a relationship and while Summer is an amazing girl, she's not an amazing girl for him. She just fills a place in an idea he's created.

This is the unaddressed issue in a lot of romance. We get a plethora of characters who find 'the one' and then the live happily ever after forever because love is forever and...yeah, sarcasm. But the amount of people who will love one person and only one person for their entire lives is infintesimal. Not only that, it's a bit worrying for the people who do. If you've experienced a break up, think about how much you learned about yourself from it. Especially if it was a bad one. I like to say my break ups have been so bad I had to learn to appreciate being single because I knew how bad it was sometimes to not be.

What obsessive love lacks is the ability to really learn anything about yourself. I told you above, we both had a lot of things to work out in our lives because we were young and foolish. By being obsessed with someone you ignore yourself and what's going on with you. Not only is that unhealthy, but it also freezes you in place. If you're ignoring yourself, you're not growing as a person, and as soon as we stop growing as people well...bad things happen.

Love is not spending all of your time, or money, or emotional energy on. It's not stalking or dependence. It's not obsession. What is love? Maybe I can scratch the surface of it tomorrow. For today, a quick explanation of what love is not seems appropriate. Take care audience. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

P.S. For a witty interpretation of the phenomena of love, here's a Cracked article which does a great job with the subject.