Ever since we were young and watching our favorite Disney movies (this was way back in the pre-Pixar days), we learned that in the end, no matter what, love would conquer all. Love conquers evil spells, giant octopus witches, and even wicked mother-in-laws with appalling fashion taste. The bottom line is always the same: once we find our true loves, we will live happily ever after, and prosper while we spend the rest of our days in a fabulous castle and never gain weight and never get older (castle, in modern terms, can loosely be translated into a 3 bedroom condo overlooking a body of water).
But, let’s be realistic. Love doesn’t conquer all. I propose that the statement should be amended to, “Love may conquer a few things sometimes, but that doesn’t mean everything else in life is perfect or that our lives will magically be complete.” It has a nice bumper-sticker ring to it, right?
I say this not to be pessimistic, but rather to keep ourselves grounded and have more fulfilling expectations of love and relationships. We cannot spend our lives waiting around for one person to come in and change everything for us. The point of finding another person should not be to complete our own lives, but rather to find someone to share ourselves with, and to enjoy another person and value them equally. As the most credible source for relationships, Alanis Morissette, once said, “I don’t want to be your other half. I believe that one and one make two.”
That’s why being single is so important. Often times, people feel like they absolutely must have a significant other, and worry about when the next one will come along when they are alone. People may become something like urban tigers, hunting for possibilities every time they venture out into the jungle streets, looking for their next prey regardless of whether or not they fit into their ideal palate. But when we’re single, we can truly make the most of this time, where we have time to reflect and focus on ourselves. If we don’t have a strong center in ourselves, we cannot expect to be a suitable partner for anyone. We’ve all dated that unstable guy or girl who you just wanted to scream at, where you just want to tell them to spend some time alone and find themselves. We all need to look at ourselves, work on ourselves, and be happy with ourselves, before we can be prepared to enter a mature and stable relationship, and this is an ongoing, never-ending process.
Love is, of course, a beautiful thing, and the driving force behind friendships, families, and relationships. But we have to remember that there are other things in life than romantic love, and that finding “one true love” will not suddenly make everything in the world sunshine and baby kittens (though sometimes it might feel like that). Ironically, in order to have satisfying relationships, we have to remember that they are not the sole purpose to our lives, and keep a balanced perspective on the situation.
It might be alright in the movies to be centered entirely on romance, but in the real world, this translates into either a.) an obsessive psychopath, b.) the person who texts you every 5 seconds after one date, or c.) constant depression when a relationship fails to live up to the Cinderella standard.
The other ideological masterminds, even greater than Alanis, coined the infamous line “All you need is love.” I agree with this statement, I just think it’s important to keep in mind that love comes in many forms. There is romantic love, which can be one of the most powerful, but also our friendships and our relationships with our families, and of course, the love we have for ourselves.
About the Author: Rachel Goldberg, originally from Chicago, is a senior at Indiana University studying Creative Writing and Gender Studies, and writes a weekly column for the Indiana Daily Student entitled “Sex and the Not-So-Big City.” (If you’ve ever been to Bloomington, you’ll understand the mentality of big sexuality, little Midwest town.) While she has a young, fresh perspective on modern love, she also possesses an age-old wisdom that only comes to those with a plethora of failed relationships. When she’s not busy writing about the mess that is her love life, she can be found incessantly complaining about it to friends and family. Her advice stems from college classes, paired with her real-world experience as a college student and columnist. In her spare time she enjoys going out for cocktails with friends, and then laments the fact that she cannot afford said cocktails due to being a college student. She was voted “Most Likely to Be on SNL” as a high school senior, but she maintains that this was only because there were seriously no funny girls in the entire grade.
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