The damaging effects of rom-coms...

The damaging effects of rom coms…

and other forms of

Romantic storytelling on my personal perspective of romance.

This is by no means a scientific study or a peer-reviewed article, this is merely introspective. At the age of 33, I can truly say that I am in a strange place when it comes to my views on romance, dating, and the whole act of relationships. A sort of post-romantic and cynical phase. I have always thought of myself as a romantic and much to my detriment I held those ideals as I suffered through a long and arduous toxic relationship. Holding on to the concept of true love and soul mates to keep me where I was.

Certainly, other things trapped me in that relationship, but it was mostly ideology (never stay for the kids, folks.) I have never had a real-world example of a healthy relationship, everything I ever learned came straight from rom-coms and romance novels. This is what I am getting at here. All my views on romance have been fake. The world doesn’t work like fiction, that’s why it’s called fiction. A veritable perfect storm of a life hard-lived, growing up too early and being exposed to themes that I was too young to understand and wham, I developed a toxic and warped sense of romance.

Everyone has disagreements, but love will conquer all. When you really look at the way relationships are shown in the context of a lot of Rom-Coms and those super dark romance novels, it’s easy to see why I am all screwed up now. A cocktail of possessive, problematic, gaslighting, and unhealthy relationship dynamics that very much stems from a long-ago (not so long ago really) time of patriarchal ideals that romanticize a woman choosing a man over herself every time. I have to be everything for that man, I have to be everything a man wants.

Love will conquer all.

It’s bullshit. Love doesn’t work that way, and I am learning that the hard way and it is a hell of a climb to unlearn all of that.

Now I am not saying that you must give up your romantic guilty pleasure, comfort entertainment, I mean those things are made as a departure from reality. I am merely just saying it’s important that we all start writing people more realistically. Writing relationships more realistically and maybe abandoning harmful troupes like possessiveness and controlling behaviors for more healthy depictions of what love truly is. Also, we need to make it clear that some love fizzles out and it’s okay to separate. This whole soulmate, one true love, and anti-divorce mentality are not only harmful but outdated and very unrealistic.

Sometimes people fall out of love, and that’s okay to admit. It’s easy for people to get caught up in the chemical reaction of lust or strong feelings for another and it seems like it will last forever, but the truth of the matter is that it may not. I am not saying that no one ever stays with someone for their whole lives, I am merely saying that relationships are work. But in the end that work has to be worth it. A relationship that is never fun and toxic should be abandoned, it’s okay to walk away from things when they no longer suit you or the other person. Love cannot conquer toxicity.