Romanticizing

"Or love in general, for that matter. It just leads to the idea that either your love is pure, perfect, and eternal, and you are storybook-compatible in every way with no problems, or you're LYING when you say I love you."


Yeah, I found the comic pretty funny, especially since one of my friends seems to fit into that panel quite well. But the mouse over text (the quote underneath the comic) was a lot more interesting to me.


To be clear, he's not saying that we should freely say the phrase "I love you" to just anyone. He's not trying to criticize society for holding something as finicky and abstract as love on a high pedestal.

He is pointing out the problem with romanticizing love. And by romanticize, he doesn't mean being romantic or mushy; he means taking love and running it though seven different hair stylists and makeup artists, then topping it off with a Photoshop session so that the end result is unblemished and, well, perfect.

- too perfect.

It's become very apparent over the last few months that we disagree on a number of things. But I'm totally fine with that; if anything, I enjoy it. It makes our conversations a lot more lively and engaging. As much as we like our opinions to be affirmed, a wall that just echoes every word doesn't make for very interesting conversation.

It didn't come as a surprise to me that we disagree on love and marriage. She believes in perfect, ideal marriages filled with equally perfect, eternal love. She says it's a girl thing, that it's every girl's guilty dream to grow up to find a perfect man. And I can respect that.

I thought about it though, and I realized that I've never really believed in perfect marriages or perfect love. For as long as I can remember, my opinion on it hasn't really changed one way or the other. But I don't think that's just because I've always been pragmatic my entire life, or because my parents raised me to be skeptical of perfect love.

I've never believed in perfect love because I don't want it to be perfect. I don't want love to be eternal, to be wholly unconditional and unbreakable.

Because if that's true, then what's stopping you from taking it for granted? Your infatuation?

Hah. Infatuation.


No, I want love to be fragile. I want it to be challenging -- a struggle, if you will.
I want it to be something worth fighting for - long after I already found it.

Because perfection isn't beautiful.
Pain is.