It seems over the years that our capacity for romance has dwindled. I recall some old movies I’ve watched where I would sit in awe at the lengths people went to in courting the person they wanted. I watched as they would hold conversations face-to-face getting to know one another, transfixed on the other person’s personality. Wanting to open up more and more every time a smile crept across that other person’s face, go on dates that involved stargazing and taking long walks alongside magnificent terrains and enjoying no other bed than those of the arms of their partner, sad without their presence, lost without their voice. This, sadly, is what romance was, and it seems to have been forgotten.
Nowadays a first date includes driving down to Calverton or downtown Silver Spring to watch a movie and then get some Chipotle, spending hours not transfixed on the person beside us, but on the screen in front of us. We spend time like this and we think we are forming a bond that’s supposedly long lasting when all you know about them are their favorite colors, their birthday, and their favorite food. This is today’s romance.
Romance today has become impersonal and based on fallacies: young men falling for girls who masquerade behind their looks and physique and boys whose social standing and outfits are the factors that make them a heart-throb. It astounds me. We’ve fallen victim to a world that is satisfied by so many superficialities that we are creating an absurd criterion for what our “perfect” person is.
We have allowed society to pick the pigment that’s most favored, “dark-skins are winning.” What happened to funny guys? What happened to loyalty and trust? It seems that we’ve become people who want those who others find attractive. We want those who other people praise, who others acknowledge as cute or who they think we will be cute with. That’s useless. This type of thinking lacks any substance that may prove everlasting.
A relationship that lasts is the one that happens with the person who makes you smile with a single thought, the person who turns a gaze to a dreamy-eyed stare wondering how lucky you are to have them, the person who looks beyond your flaws and scars and accepts you. Don’t you see: it is that movie romance, the romance I’ve seen in my parents, the romance I, among many, wish for in my life.
I want a romance that lives in the 60’s. I want someone who is beautiful to me when sick or bruised, someone I know will be there for me no matter what. This should be what we all aspire for in a relationship. We shouldn’t want anything less, but I know many of us will continue to accept less. We choose to allow outside factors such as society and social media to shape us allowing ourselves to become influenced in choosing the people we want to be with. No one plans to fall for someone and no one should choose someone based on what others think. Be open-minded, enjoy the company of the people around you not those within your screen, and go out of your way to form new relationships because that very step may be the one that causes you to fall.