Love and Reality

Some of my favorite books on love include Call Me By Your Name, Of Human Bondage, East of Eden, The Great Gatsby, and The Song of Achilles. No, not puppy love. No, not the fluffy romance novels I like to read as a coping mechanism on the day to day. No champagne and roses, but soul-wrenching, gutting, ugly, manipulative, obsessive, tragic love. Is it even love at that point? What even is love?

I have a penchant for love stories that are awful. It’s just something about them. Philip’s obsession with the ever-horrible Mildred. Young and impressionable Elio’s questionable attraction to the older and worldly Oliver. Patroclus’ and Gatsby’s love that leads them to their ultimate demise. I love these books because I feel that they depict perhaps not a more realistic version of love, but a different side to the coin. They demonstrate that love can be obsessive and consuming, even to its detriment. Yes, we all want to be loved like that or to love like that. Isn’t it romantic, to be loved to the ends of the earth? But why does the deepest love always seem to be unrequited and therefore, doomed? Usually the characters receiving love are unextraordinary, awful, selfish, mean. What is it about loving someone who does not love you back that feels the most irreparable? Now, that’s a lot to unpack.

Love, especially in a romantic context, seems more often than not to be a mystery. Where do the fantasies end and where do the realities begin? What is love? Is it comfort? Is it excitement? Is lust a catalyst for love, or vice versa? Is it a choice, or something out of our control, something that smacks you in the face one day out of nowhere? Exactly how different are friendships and relationships? Is it inherently transactional? Is it love or delusion and limerence if not in some form or another, reciprocated?

I feel that love without reality is no love at all, but infatuation at most. I can’t agree with anyone who tries to claim things along the lines of “right person wrong time” which I find to be mostly excuses. Perhaps love is only love once it withstands such pesky realities. And some even say if it fails, it was never love to begin with. Now, that, I can get behind.

Love even if it’s not easy!

Feb. 14, 2024