During a few glasses of wine the other day, I had what seemed like hundreds of impactful insights that I wanted to share in this post. Now that it’s later, those thoughts seem to have dispersed back into the air and I am back to focusing on everyday life. This isn’t a feminist rant about hating Valentines Day. This is a deeper look into the idea of love and romance as some humans might tend to experience it (myself included).
I think I remember my dad getting my mom roses/flowers maybe once or twice growing up. And honestly, my mom would have likely been upset had it happened more often; my family was poor and flowers would definitely have been an expense that would have been unnecessary at the time. While the gesture in the moment might have been sweet, we’d have had to go without in another area to make up that cost. I often remember being mad on my mom’s behalf; mad at my dad for not getting my mom gifts as demonstrations of love…and as I now understand on a deeper level, parents don’t get to decide what their kids take away from watching their relationships. I knew from a young age how much gifts and romantic gestures meant to me – the opposite of how I watched my dad love on my mom. I wanted extravagance and over-the-top gestures and declarations of love. One day when I was grown up, I was going to have money so that gifts could come to me aplenty and I would live every day in happily-ever-after land.
Grown up Amanda with money did not get any closer to that imaginary happily-ever-after that she dreamed of. After getting married and finishing school, we had money and it was always spent wisely. Gifts and gestures were bought when something came on a good sale and made sense to purchase. Valentine’s Day was a Hallmark-created day and held no importance; I convinced myself that it wasn’t about grand gestures on a day that was created by card and candy makers to make more money. Birthdays were consistently just another day for me. Christmas could be organized and gifts could be purchased online cheaper by watching sales ahead of time; everything was cost effective, there was never any “I saw it and thought of you and had to get it no matter the cost.” I knew from my childhood that being poor sucked and that I didn’t want to live like that, but to live wisely with money meant I still didn’t get all the frivolous gifts that I thought I wanted.
Maybe Valentines Day and our perception of romance just comes down to wanting what we don’t/haven’t had. I still want the grand over-the-top gestures. I want flower petals spread from the front door to the bathroom where champagne and snacks are waiting in a tray above an already drawn bubble bath. I want to be carried up the stairs stopping for kisses along the way. I want to have my clothes slowly taken off while every inch of me gets loved. But that’s just movie scenes; that’s not real. Like in the movies I want to be told I’m beautiful everyday; someone to look at me all the time and for me to know at my core that they are thinking “how did I get so lucky to have you?” But with age and experience comes some wisdom. So is this just a post about how men or partners haven’t stepped up? About how some partners “can’t” step up? That romance is dead? No. It would be easy to project this onto “the other person” in a relationship and go off on a rant about people needing to step up. My boyfriend has worked hard to step up and buys all the gifts, and I still struggle with my thoughts about romance, Valentines Day and what I think love in general should look like. I think there’s more to it than what we’ve been taught to believe. I think it’s the “should – look – like” that is something to be explored.
Society has told us what love and romance should look like. We live in a world where movies and influencers create beautiful imaginary-perfection scenes that make us want to achieve that level of romantic living. Disney movies where Prince Charming carries his true love off and they both live happily ever. But we never get to check back in with Disney about where the prince and princess are at two years later. There is scientific data that backs up that what we see on the tv, movies, socials, etc. affects our lens and expectations for real life. Our version of romance comes, in part, from what we watch or read. Has this led to having higher expectations of real-life romance? Likely. We see romance on television – the chase, the building conflict, the climax and finally the romantic resolution and happily-ever-after. It feels good as we’re watching it – we feel the feelings alongside the lead roles. If you add to that, the idea that movies have continually been evolving over time, and we’ve actually fast-tracked current generations in terms of what “romance” means. Back in the day (I’m aging myself a bit here), we looked forward to a final hug or a kiss in a movie *swoon* – nowadays there’s a hug and a kiss within the first scenes. Alongside those changes, our thoughts about relationships and what people believe a partner is capable of contributing has changed as well. Before, a man in a movie buying a woman flowers and stating his love was dramatic and made our hearts swell. Nowadays, nobody would look up from their phone for that. A man only buying flowers now would be a red flag; cue “you’re worth so much more, girl.” We want the thrill of the chase – we want to feel the over the top level of happiness that the movies show us. And we are egging each other on. We see it everywhere on socials with #ifhewantedtohewould hashtags that make us feel like if it’s not movie level dramatic then he really isn’t trying. We’re perpetuating our own suffering to continue one-upping each other. And at the end of the day, nobody actually wins. We’re fighting each other to reach a higher rung in a ladder that we don’t actually care about. It’s a ladder that we’ve been told we should care about – and that is what keeps us stuck. Instead of being able to celebrate each other and the love that each of our partners’ provide, we get envious and change our expectations because of the feelings that we dream about getting the chance to feel. Social media, movies, books, etc. are all creating dissatisfaction within ourselves about our lives. It’s not just about the romance, however, but about expectations of our partners in general. In Buddhism, desire is at the root of suffering. Desiring something that we don’t currently have, leaves us in a continual space of suffering and seeing many aspects of our lives as “not good enough”. To be clear, I’m not supporting partners doing nothing romantic for each other – I think that that is important. I am, however, supporting the idea that our expectations of each other might not be in alignment with real life.
This leads to my second musing about happiness in general within relationships. While our expectations of romance has been influenced by movies, books, social media, etc, we are also continually sourcing out our happiness to other people. Relying on others to fill our cups and/or give us everything we need to live happily-ever-after. The truth is, it’s not about gifts and the romance. What it comes down to is feeling like we’re not alone in the world; that someone else is there in the thick of it with us. Gestures and words are wonderful affirmations and validation, but if they’re hollow or forced because of a holiday then they really mean nothing. We’re all searching for love outside ourselves, thinking that there’s a magical space to ‘get to’ and you’ll have made it and you have been successful at life. Honestly, I don’t think anyone ever reaches that plane, because real love has to start from within and then gets shared outwards and gets reflected back to you. I’m talking about genuine unconditional love (which, according to Peter Crone, no human is actually able to do – but we can keep trying). It sounds hokey, but deep within us, apparently, is the original source of love itself. We are love itself. Now, I don’t actually have any answers to take this any deeper, because I too am in the thick of things, figuring out how to live this life. And yes, I do still love receiving gifts, gestures and words of affirmations. I think there is a place for love and romance. But I do know that you can’t expect it of other people if you’re not currently giving it to yourself. Again, what that actually looks like in terms of living a life I have no idea.
So what’s the moral of my story?
Stop.
Searching.
For.
Emotions.
Or at least, stop searching for emotions within things from other people. It’s just going to make you hate Valentine’s Day and a lot of other days in your future. Look after you. Have conversations with your person about gestures and/or words of affirmation that would feel good to you. Go out on date nights and try to continually woo each other over and over again. There is not a happily-ever-after place that you magically get to where suddenly everything becomes and stays easy; for it to be meaningful and to grow alongside you, it will always take some work. It takes a lot of communication and a heck of a lot more than gifts on Valentines Day to feel happy and thriving within a relationship. But it all really starts with YOU. Become aware and work to stay aware of your thoughts and your prior programming.
