Love Love Love

Most people seem to think a lot about romantic love, or at least they think a lot about it until they get it. Then they seem to only think about it when it isn't satisfactory. 

I thought about romantic love to the point that I realized I could live a happy life without it. 

That doesn't mean I'm dismissive of romantic love. I like a good romantic comedy or story arc. I like well written love songs and poems. I like the more clever portrayals of love in ads. Essentially, I enjoy a lot of the lovey-dovey things which people who don't care for mainstream culture are supposed to loathe. In my defense, I tend to like more unusual or better written love stories. But then I also like Ross and Rachel, Monica and Chandler, Niles and Daphne, and Jules and Grayson.

As wi all the run of the mill saps and suckers, what I most like about love story-lines is that false golden moment of love. The meet cute, the moment when characters realize the other is the one, the proclamatory speech that wins the other's heart. It's all complete horse crap, but I still can get caught up in it.

I also like looking at pictures of guy-guy couples being affectionate; guys in bed together, guys kissing, guys embracing, guys holding hands. I find most these images on picture blogs with hundreds or thousands of followers so I'm clearly not alone in my enjoyment of these images. 

It's impossible to know what's really going on in a photo of two guys embracing passionately at a train station or walking along a street holding hands. But, like everyone, I always assume the best. These are two guys who have clicked in a way they never thought was possible. Their love is unique and eternal.

And of course that's also probably horse crap. 

I've never been in a relationship (which by supposed social norms makes me a freak though in reality I'm just one of tens of thousands) but I have many friends who have and are. I've seen many wonderful perfect-for-each-other relationships crash and burn or merely fade away.  I've seen passionless, dull relationships last for years. 

I enjoy the fantasy of love and romance but it can also make me feel bad for the countless numbers who believe that fantasy and want it as a reality for themselves. The single people who will never come close to finding the other they seek,  the people in relationships who feel unhappy because the relationship is so far from their ideal. 

There's nothing I can do about sadness brought about from an unrealistic view of love or other aspects of life. So when it comes to love in fiction (TV, movies, songs, books) I just enjoy the surface veneer and ignore the edges where I might see the veneer is lifting or buckling.