Posted by Sophie Westrope on December 12, 2013 · 1 Comment
WHEN I was little, I used to watch couples in awe and wonderment. Being the daughter of a single mother for the best part of growing up I barely understood how two people could find one another and decide it best to become a ‘couple’. I used to look at this pairing of humans and hope and pray that one day when I’m grown up I’ll be able to just look at somebody and know they were meant to be mine. I thought it might just be that simple. One thing I did not imagine was that I would ever utter the words “it’s just casual. Just a sex thing.” Those words never struck me as romantic and they still don’t.
This is one of the many burgeoning issues with our generation; that we don’t have the fucking foggiest idea how to love or how to be even remotely romantic. We’ve all become so desensitised by soppy movies and embarrassingly cringe-inducing social networking PDAs that we seem to all be permanently stuck in standby mode when it comes to relationships. Or rather relation-’not-really-an-official-thing-but-still-sort-of-a-thing’-ships should I say?
We’ve lost our will to love. We left it somewhere back in our childhoods in the same place we left our manners and our common sense, right around the time that the evil internet showed up and changed everything. The internet has brought with it many a substantially positive change but it has also dramatically altered the way we connect as human beings and now the click of a button begins a friendship or a flirtation and it’s taken away the mystery of it all. Why bother dating or even meeting in person when you can find every detail you might want to know from a person’s online presence? Why do we even need to hear their voice? Or touch their hand or even breath the same oxygen as them? Because it’s JUST NOT THE SAME, OKAY?!
It’s not and it never will be. Falling for somebody should be a string of hopelessly awkward first moments combined with a plethora of embarrassing laughing fits and clammy hand holding. It should be endless cups of tea in bed on a Sunday watching crappy television and it should be walks around Tesco filling a basket with food you won’t end up cooking each other for dinner.
It certainly shouldn’t be something you can’t define to your friends. It shouldn’t be something you’re ashamed of or a dirty little secret. Call me old-fashioned but I want it yelled from the rooftops and while I’m not under any impression that people run to each other in the rain to declare their love or write everyday for a year (even on Sundays when there’s no post? Get it right, Nicholas Sparks!) but I am of the understanding that showing somebody you are interested in what they have to say and that you enjoy their company and think they might just be the cat’s pyjamas will never be a bad thing. But it has become perceived as one.
The words ‘needy’ and ‘clingy’ are thrown around in discussions about dating all too often because we’re a generation of laid back lazies who need to find some oomf, some gumption, some cahoonas you might even say. We need to stop fretting that displaying affection or the slightest interest might reek of ‘desperation’. We have to stop attempting to entice our mate with a string of noncommittal text messages that are so carefully constructed to illustrate that tiny sliver of attraction that they ultimately read as being sent from somebody who couldn’t give a flying monkeys about the person they’re being sent to.
Who came up with this ridiculous notion that in order to find a suitor we must first verbally bash them and show so little emotion that we seem as cold-blooded as cod?! Why is romance dead and who was the culprit because I’d like to ring their neck? Especially because I am sick to absolute death of all this fannying about. Nobody can commit to anything these days. It’s either all or not really anything at all. Practically everyone I know is either head over heels in a crazy dramatic relationship that’s accelerating towards marriage so fast just thinking about it gives me motion sickness or ‘just seeing somebody at the moment’ because they were in a relationship two years ago and still don’t feel emotionally ready to enter into another.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we’re all supposed to pair off and be happy but for the love of all that is holy could we please at least try to get our heads out of our own arses and just tell that person that we like them and actually no, being ‘fuck buddies’ isn’t going to suffice.
The sooner the fucking better.
