romantic commodity

the most satisfying part of any rom-com is when the couple finally gets together. they've made it through trial, tribulation, and the unnecessary third-act misunderstanding. war is over! all is well! and, the movie is done! though sometimes, we get a two-minute heteronormative montage featuring the couple getting married, buying a house, and having kids.

but what happens next? do andie anderson and ben berry make it through the 2008 great recession? and why don't movies let us see the relationship in depth? this can all be summarized neatly in a single sentence: popular media focuses moreso on the pursuit of love instead of love itself.

you could argue that the pursuit is simply more narratively more interesting, but there is an infinite amount of conflict you could through at an already-together-couple. okay, maybe it's a matter of stakes: if both parties start off single, there is everything to gain, but if we start a story in a relationship, we either maintain this status or lose the relationship. and sure, one of these dynamics is more uplifting than the other.

what i find interesting is that the importance seems to be placed on obtaining a lover. having love. owning love. as if it were some commodity.

the language we use when talking about relationships, saying "you have to invest in them" or "cut your losses" uses financial principles to talk about interpersonal relationships. even further, blackpill communities (read: incels) often use the term "high-value women," key word being value. conversational hearts reading "be mine" or "i'm yours." it all feels constricting and overly systematic compared to the image of a wild, uncontrollable love.

and i think this conditioning is why so many people are disillusioned and disappointed with their actual relationships. there's this weird view of owning someone, of someone being an asset to your life and vice versa. this is well-put in rachel cusk's 2024 novel, parade:

"in the system of love, we soon came to understand, all things that were free retained their appearance of freedom while in fact being conscripted into ownership. was love itself a system of ownership? often we recieve the confusing impression that love disliked freedom and at the same time sought to impersonate it."

roughly 2,000 years ago, the stoic philosopher, seneca, wrote

"if you wish to be loved, love."

focus on love the verb not the noun.

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disclaimer: i am writing this on national boyfriend day.

this blog may say more about me than anything else.

love ya,

sputnik sweetheart ⋆˙⟡♡

[all images sourced from pinterest]