I think one of my favorite pictures regarding love and romance is this one:
“What is love?” “A neurochemical con job.”
Because this child can’t be more than eight, and they’ve hit the idea right on the nose. Love is something that we as humans have evolved into finding mutually beneficial, especially in this time of the necessity of two-income households. Our own human biology cons us into finding the way a person smiles and the weird half-laugh they do at dumb jokes on Twitter worthy of our affection and time. Humans are essentially useless when they’re born. As a way to compensate, evolution gave humans oxytocin, the hormone that makes us feel bonded with other people. It starts out when our mothers bond with us as babies, or as children.
And then we chase that feeling forever. Humans are social. We – generally – like being around other humans. At the very least, we all need some human contact. So our own biology goes “here, have some oxytocin” when we’re around people we like. And that makes us like them more. And then romance comes in. That fuzzy feeling? It’s just hormones.
There are also the benefits of being in a relationship in the modern world, like shared costs for the Netflix subscription. Or for budgeting for the future because you’re unsure about whether or not grad school will have enough return on investment to go. In an age of dating apps and OKCupid quizzes, it’s hard to find the romance sometimes. It isn’t all milkshakes and going steady. A lot of romance is having real conversations about the future.
Like:
“If you were never financially stable enough, would either of you be okay with not having children?”
“Do you even want children at all?”
“Do you have any debt, student or otherwise?”
In this new generation reaching adulthood, these questions are more like small talk on a first date rather than questions you ask after you’ve been together for five years and already own a dog.
But that hormone remains. Humans like and need other humans, and not just for their various accounts to watch TV. Companionship is a part of the human experience. Even when the questions we have to ask each other get harder, it isn’t impossible.
We can find love in a hopeless place.
If Rihanna says we can, I believe her.
The other night I was sitting around a table playing cards with some friends, while another group of friends gathered around the television engulfed in the finale of the famous show, “The Bachelorette”. Why was I not one of the girls with my eyes glued to that screen for two hours?
That love is forced for 12 weeks until a female narrows down a group of 25 men to a single one, who she is apparently lucky to call her future husband. Now, I’m not bashing on this show, I find it quite amusing and I definitely get a kick out of it. That said, that show does not portray the love we want or need.
Society has placed it in our minds that we are on a constant search for the one that will give us this “feeling.” But is this “feeling” really so great? It causes so much heartache, so much jealousy, so much sadness, and yet it is all we are searching for as human beings.
Does my significant other love me? Do my friends love me? So much is dependent on love. I see elderly couples walking down the street hand-in-hand clearly in love, and I wonder … how can it be that easy?
The love I have experienced has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride filled with never ending twists and turns. Love can never be simple. I think of that couple, I think of the amount of hardship and problems their love most likely endured, and how in the end they are together, hand-in-hand, loving each other.
Then I think of my best friend, 20 years of age, experiencing a love that at the same time is breaking her heart. How can love bring so much happiness, but at the same time be so menacing to someone’s mind and soul? It makes absolutely no sense.
We dream of this love that is so easy, so simple, so perfect; a love that we honestly will most likely never experience. Why keep searching for it, you ask? Love is what keeps us going. It will find someone multiple times in their lifetime taking on different forms, but affecting them all the same. Love is the boundless feeling that overtakes every mind, body, and soul on this planet and there is absolutely no stopping it. The only thing you can do is embrace it and pray that it happens to be the love that you ultimately desire.