Love: Is it a Fairytale, or Should it Be a Fairytale?
“What is Love? Baby don’t hurt me”
Wars have been fought over love; it is the basis of every good movie and every captivating story. It has become as essential to every human as breathing air is. Why is it then that we still struggle to comprehend it and grasp the true meaning of it? If it is as essential as air is to us, shouldn’t it be as easy as breathing then? Truthfully, no. Society has created an image of love where it as essential as breathing, but in reality, loving another human that you want to create a life with should only capture 10% of your attention and time. Why we fail so much when it comes to love is because we think it is as essential as breathing air, when in reality, it is simply a single relationship that shouldn’t require all our time and energy.
While we deem love to be complex, history often portrays it as the easiest thing in the world. For example, we are all familiar with a game that has French origins where a girl picks flower petals one by one off a flower while saying “he loves me, he loves me not”. The premise of this game is that whichever phrase is said when the last petal falls will show the true feelings of the person the girl was thinking about. While this is acceptable as an innocent child’s game, it is truly absurd to believe that love can be predicted through “falling petals”. However, throughout generations, love has been romanticized to a point where it holds less weight in reality and more in fairytales. We struggle with the concept of love because we adhere to the standards shown to us in said fairytales.
Robert Sternberg developed a triangular theory of love where it encompasses three vital feelings: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy focuses on attachment and closeness, passion focuses on sexual drive, and commitment is well just that; committing. The last one focuses on the decision to stay with the other person through good and bad, and to create a life based on both partners’ goals, not just one’s. Love comes in numerous forms, but when thinking of love in terms of a life partner, it is important to realize that healthy relationships can only be sustained through notions of reality, not fairytales. Loving someone means caring as much about someone else’s needs as you do your own, not necessarily killing yourself for someone as they portray in plays such as “Romeo and Juliet”.
People don’t “fall in love”, rather they grow in love. Seeing someone for the first time may spark passion, but not compassion. True love is understanding the need for compassionate love, as passionate love is just transitory. We mistake fairytales for love because while we do feel the initial rush of euphoria and attraction when we meet someone, we fail to understand that these feelings are related to a rush of dopamine and norepinephrine our brains produce. This doesn’t mean true love doesn’t exist, but rather, after this rush of hormones, our relationships need to be based on choice, not fate. Once we are attracted to someone, we need to choose to stay with them, to care for them, and to show them compassionate love.
There are dozens of people who get divorced or leave their partners because their “feelings” just aren’t the same for them. This is 100% wrong. Of course your feelings won’t remain the same because our brains cannot constantly produce an excess of dopamine and norepinephrine all the time; this would lead to our bodies breaking down. If you feel the urge to constantly chase this high, you are not chasing love, but rather the euphoria your brain initially produces. To actually have true love, you need to make the conscious and rational choice to stay with your partner even if your “feelings” aren’t the same. Don’t let fairytales dictate your notions of love, but rather consciously realize that what you need is compassionate love, not passionate love. I would end this with the lyrics from Whitney Houston’s song “And I will always Love you…”
