Decentering romantic love is, I think, what has most successfully led me towards romance. Love of art, love of nature, love of people. I don’t really “date”, anymore. I encounter my beloved on the street as they are a manifestation of the world that I love. And they love the world through me.
A lot of people trying to date seem to forget this. If I could give advice, I’d say: get out in the world and find love right where you are! Love your friends, your activities, your challenges. Love yourself. And then love will come searching for you!
I love this! I’ve been thinking a lot about this. How decentering romantic love (as bell hooks talks about) doesn’t mean you can’t still really want romantic love. The longing that goes into it. The gamification of online dating. The beauty that comes with commitment. There’s so much within this topic of “modern love”. Thank you!!!!!
i love this! especially, “Everyone around me is trying to solve physics or intelligence or Something Grand and I’m just trying to solve heterosexual relations. Don’t begrudge me for believing the latter is the harder problem.” i wish more people believed this, or more people felt like being matchmakers !
"Someday not so far away, everyone alive right now will graduate from the world, many of us having lived believing we were strangers, oblivious to the fact that we had all along been in the same class. Had the same century as a teacher." I love this
One of the big problems of not finding depth in relationships, or "real love" is that we ourselves don't dare to be vulnerable.
People fear it so much to show their real selves, or don't even know who they are because they are so busy chasing beauty standards, a sexy career or the next news update. Of course, call catalized by the perfect image that everyone so carefully sculpts in the virtual world.
Daring to show who is the real you and expressing that fully into the world will make your world a lot more interesting and connected! 🙏
I might sound very fluffy here but so be it. Love is not dead. It happens like a miracle, in places and circumstances we cannot plan or calculate. It was always like this, in the middle ages, XX century, you name it. Any place, any time. But the society came up with ideas and terms like "marriage" or "romantic relationship" to force that ephemeral beauty to fit these boundaries. Because we want to control love, make it safe and never loose it. Turn it on and of when we want. We can turn on and of marriage or a relationship, but we cannot do the same with love. Until humans persist, love will be alright.
"Girls on my TikTok feed are making “first date series” where they go on 30 or 50 first dates. The conceit of the series, obviously, is that there’s not gonna be enough content if you meet your soulmate right away. Luckily, no one seems to.”
It is a bit sad seeing love being used like that for commercial reasons or simply to gain more likes. It is happening much faster than I have anticipated in my work. At least for the next 15-20 years, the situation seems to be irreversible unfortunately.
Decentering romantic love is, I think, what has most successfully led me towards romance. Love of art, love of nature, love of people. I don’t really “date”, anymore. I encounter my beloved on the street as they are a manifestation of the world that I love. And they love the world through me.
A lot of people trying to date seem to forget this. If I could give advice, I’d say: get out in the world and find love right where you are! Love your friends, your activities, your challenges. Love yourself. And then love will come searching for you!
https://rishi.garden/love
I love this! I’ve been thinking a lot about this. How decentering romantic love (as bell hooks talks about) doesn’t mean you can’t still really want romantic love. The longing that goes into it. The gamification of online dating. The beauty that comes with commitment. There’s so much within this topic of “modern love”. Thank you!!!!!
A song that goes well with your post: https://youtu.be/jakrnbe1GAs?si=xC3pCQwUr7nKXfSK
i love this! especially, “Everyone around me is trying to solve physics or intelligence or Something Grand and I’m just trying to solve heterosexual relations. Don’t begrudge me for believing the latter is the harder problem.” i wish more people believed this, or more people felt like being matchmakers !
brilliant. share more
This is such a good read. Very Carrie Bradshaw too (as in the way you carry your thoughts and pov and raise questions!) love the stats!
"Someday not so far away, everyone alive right now will graduate from the world, many of us having lived believing we were strangers, oblivious to the fact that we had all along been in the same class. Had the same century as a teacher." I love this
If anyone is interested in a deeper dive of modern love & it's data, i just read Zvi's "This is why you're single" post and it's fascinating.
https://thezvi.substack.com/p/dating-roundup-1-this-is-why-youre
thank you for talking about this!!! (not gonna lie the data chart frightened me a bit) ❤️
this is SO good!!! i just wrote a piece about how i think people are relying on their phone too much and are avoiding the discomfort of meeting in real life - if you read let me know what you think !! https://open.substack.com/pub/angelcake/p/we-should-bring-back-dance-floor?r=4wolf&utm_medium=ios
Hey, here’s a better link to the chart. It’s probably worth noting that it’s based off data from 2009 to 2017
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1908630116
There’s also a 2021 update to the data here
https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/
Really great stuff!
Always think about this and totally relate to your post! Thanks for sharing!!!
One of the big problems of not finding depth in relationships, or "real love" is that we ourselves don't dare to be vulnerable.
People fear it so much to show their real selves, or don't even know who they are because they are so busy chasing beauty standards, a sexy career or the next news update. Of course, call catalized by the perfect image that everyone so carefully sculpts in the virtual world.
Daring to show who is the real you and expressing that fully into the world will make your world a lot more interesting and connected! 🙏
I might sound very fluffy here but so be it. Love is not dead. It happens like a miracle, in places and circumstances we cannot plan or calculate. It was always like this, in the middle ages, XX century, you name it. Any place, any time. But the society came up with ideas and terms like "marriage" or "romantic relationship" to force that ephemeral beauty to fit these boundaries. Because we want to control love, make it safe and never loose it. Turn it on and of when we want. We can turn on and of marriage or a relationship, but we cannot do the same with love. Until humans persist, love will be alright.
"Girls on my TikTok feed are making “first date series” where they go on 30 or 50 first dates. The conceit of the series, obviously, is that there’s not gonna be enough content if you meet your soulmate right away. Luckily, no one seems to.”
It is a bit sad seeing love being used like that for commercial reasons or simply to gain more likes. It is happening much faster than I have anticipated in my work. At least for the next 15-20 years, the situation seems to be irreversible unfortunately.