why do we all need a love story?

14.02.2022

Song: All I Want - Kodaline

when I was 8, my mum took me to my first movie theatre. It was just around the time when ‘’Finding Nemo’’ came out. I was holding hands with a best friend in the movie theatre wolfing down the popcorn mom bought for me, and by the time Marlin – and for the uncultured, he’s not just Nemo’s dad, he has a name- found Dory, and they had a ‘’meet cute’’. I vividly remember turning to my best friend, tapping her on her shoulder, and telling her, ‘’oh look, they’re in love’’. She had started nodding her head while grinning and asked me how I knew, and I just whispered ‘’oh come on, you just know it.’’ I had thought of the idea of love with two fish when I was eight because the cartoons that I watched up until that day made me believe that love was undeniably real, and it was somehow ‘’there’’ for each and every one of us.

Before I dive into this magical yet somehow twisted topic;

Let’s set something straight first. We are all riddled with psychological abnormalities that make maintaining a relationship exceedingly tricky, and no, I am not being Negative Nancy this time, trust me. We all slip into complacent habits. Those of us who care most about connection are the ones who are willing to put in the effort. But we are impatient individuals, prone to making false charges laced with self-pity, and unused to communicating our wants in a way that others can understand. So, we do struggle.

The terrible moods that will hide behind the eager smiles, the painful pasts that will lurk behind the glittering eyes, the twisted psyches that will live beneath a proclaimed love of camping and the outdoors… What I'm trying to say is that, while there are hundreds of other people we may meet, there aren't many of them that we might genuinely "love."

But why do we want a love story so badly? I mean, except for the intense media consumption that caused us to think that ‘’we all deserve a love story’’, which I do not disagree with. Though to be frank, it makes us feel a bit lonely. We watch all of those romcoms and think to ourselves, ‘’well, why don’t I have what they have’’ we go into this spiral of self-conciseness where we believe there is something wrong with us. Maybe it’s the way we talk to strangers or how we eat in front of others. Or worse, what if we’re just boring? What if we are simply just not interesting enough that we become a side character in our own lives?

For the longest time, I thought I was enough for myself. Enough to entertain, enough to make myself feel safe and secure. I played this game for such a long time over and over again, and God, was it exhausting. I couldn’t escape from its giant claws. I came to realize that love is eternal and is painted everywhere in different forms, shapes, colours, scriptures, writings, speeches, and ourselves.

Pretending like I don’t need anyone in my life to keep everything together. I thought, ‘’no, don’t fall in love, cause most things that fall, break.’’ I was scared. Love brings suffering, I thought. I told myself I was being selfish for being scared of it. I wanted to fulfil my own needs and wants, but I didn’t want to take all the responsibility that came with it. As I got older, I started to take responsibility for my actions, which usually sucked. However, I managed to see that love is a very selfless act; when you genuinely love someone, you love them for who they are, not for what they do for you. On our own, we are weak, but when we have others we love, and we love each other, we are stronger. We can compensate for what each other lacks, and when we devote ourselves to something other than us is when we see more of the world's beauty and the things that are larger in life, instead of always focusing on ourselves or our problems.

Maybe this kind of so-called ‘’true love’’ will never find you. But I feel that it's an ideal we should work towards. We might not achieve it, but we will still become better people if we adopt such thinking. But who am I to tell you what to do? Cause, of course, there are a lot of risks involved; heartbreak is always painful. We might lose ourselves while trying to find it, or maybe we find ourselves. It might be harrowing, or it might, just think, it just might be the best thing in life. Dare to find out?

-M

Note: Apparently Dory and Marlin were never a couple. Finding Nemo exploited me and made me believe in a slightly more magical world!

Man, I’m outta here…