While pursuit of love may feel frivolous for most of us trying to cope up with various disasters happening around us such as wars, famine, floods, but in my opinion, we need a romantic relationship to help cope up.
Struggles of life are different for different people and since Covid, people have started to open up about their struggles. Some are external such as war but some are internal such as depression. We have become extremely connected with each other digitally, spanning borders and oceans with binary language of 1s and 0s and yet, loneliness has been creeping upon us as one of the worst pandemic whose effect is clearly visible in our day to day lives where stress and depression have become accessories just like permanent tattoos.
For over three years, a friend of mine has been trying to get a guy to commit. They have what I would like to call an “on-and-off” relationship. They meet, have a good time and then the guy would disappear for a while and then resurface again. Why is she still involved, who knows, maybe she fears that she won’t find anyone suitable again or the thought of going back in the dating period and trying to find someone acceptable feels too tedious. Honestly, I think she is being silly but she just won’t listen to me so I have left her be. Finding a long lasting relationship is not realistic but I think if she just sticks to a few romantic encounters, she would feel much more happier.
With human evolution and civilization, people became economically independent and suddenly human emotions started becoming important. This is when we ventured into the world of fairy tale stories of Cinderella and Snow white and started believing in the idea of “happily ever after”. Marketers invented the concept of romance and love to sell jewellery and opera show tickets.
Selling romance is easy, it feels good when the hero gets the girl. It triggers an emotion in our body that makes us long for romance, for someone who will stand on the roof of a car with a rose, announcing his love in front of the entire neighbourhood who will cheer you to say yes.
I’m not a firm believer of love and Hollywood movies most of the time sell the concept of “romantic love”, which is a far more complicated scenario often filled with unsexy drama, painful trauma and choice conflicts. I personally think that love spoils the romance because love is not alone, love often rides along with jealousy, frustration, anger and worst of it, disappointment.
On the other hand, romance is a disillusion that we set around us to make us feel good. It comes with no strings attached and leaves you feeling special and wanted. Every romantic encounter doesn’t need to turn into a relationship but it sure can add a few more years to your life, thanks to the happiness vitamins that get injected into your body when someone is being romantic with you. It’s possible to fall in love with someone who can suck all the happiness out of your life but you can never go wrong with romance.
In today’s stressful environment when life is a juggle between completing project deadlines and catching the last train home, committing to a long term relationship is not easy. Our fear of future is real, everyday brings with it a new dreadful event, landslide in Kerala, blast in Ukraine, starvation in Yemen and god knows what new virus pandemic awaits us to sweep away mankind, but we need to learn to ignore them till they don’t affect us, we need to keep on feeling positive and hopeful and I personally feel that the only way to do this is to feel desired. When you walk into a pub and a guy approaches you, compliments you, buys you a drink, walks back home, gives you a kiss, and doesn’t expect you to text him back, I would say that’s a happy ending whose happiness bubble can last for at least 10 days before it bursts and you move on to another quest.
