Is love a myth?

University Degree Media Studies

Valerie Kats

English 110

Personal Essay

Is love a myth?

When they looked into each other’s eyes they were happy, genuinely happy. He took her hand and said the one line that we all long to hear: I love you. The look on her face said it all. She bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes, and for that second the world was in perfect harmony. The clouds cleared from the sky and the music filled the air.

Now, back to reality. This image of love is plastered in front of us all the time. We see it in everything from the shows on television to the big-screen blockbusters in the theatres. I saw Sweet November, a film about what else, love. This could not have been a more perfect example of the unrealistic way in which love is portrayed. Every single time the man and the woman in the film kissed there was the most dramatic and most beautiful music that you have ever heard. In the real world, there is no music when people kiss and love is never this wistful and romantic, it is filled with complications and hardships like all aspects of life. One of the top ten movies about romance id Titanic, a movie that could not have been made more dramatic if they trued. The music, the slow motions of the every kiss, and the utter amazement in their eyes made the film as unrealistic as possible. There is no denying that love can be beautiful in its first stage, but it never continues to be exactly what is started out being. When we say the word love, we do not necessarily mean romantic love. Romantic love is shared between two people who have a connection that is based not only on mutual understanding but also on physical attraction. Physical attraction is a misleading element in love. Two people can look at each other and be very attracted to one another, and may mistake this feeling of pure lust for love. To most men, using the word love is an easy way to capture the emotions of a woman to send her into another world where everything appears to be revolving. This is not true of all men, but most. When a woman says the word love, it has a different meaning to her. By her saying “I love you”, she is basically binding her emotions onto this person for a period of time which will seem like forever. Women do not use the word love, unless they genuinely feel as if they do love the person. When a woman is in love, she is in a state of complete bliss and ecstasy. She is often willing to do anything to maintain this emotion and the one who provides it for her. A woman will completely devote herself to the relationship and to the man; she will be completely controlled by the emotion of love and will surrender to it. Love is a powerful emotion that can take hold of almost anyone.

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“Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to Love.”

Virgil

Most of modern love does not end in the union we call marriage, but in feeling accompanied by anger and regret. Many relationships end on a bitter note, where the parties have no further contact with one another. Others end with friendships, where both parties have grown tired of each other but still share an interest in one another. The ones that do end in anger and hate are the most difficult to get over. They often scar a person for a long period of time and ...

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“Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to Love.”

Virgil

Most of modern love does not end in the union we call marriage, but in feeling accompanied by anger and regret. Many relationships end on a bitter note, where the parties have no further contact with one another. Others end with friendships, where both parties have grown tired of each other but still share an interest in one another. The ones that do end in anger and hate are the most difficult to get over. They often scar a person for a long period of time and make it difficult and often impossible to proceed into another relationship. And when they do proceed into yet another relationship, they are often forced to compare one to another, which is another reason for the destruction of the new relationship. Although many people tend to regret most relationships, there are some that continue to treasure the moments that they have spent and would not take back the time.

Fr

“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson

I once saw a young couple, older than myself, who were in love for three years and counting. I spoke with them, mostly the girl and found some interesting facts. First off, they were not in love at all, but loved one another, a very different matter. Being in love is not love. Love comes after the in love fades, if ever. For most, after the feeling of being in love fades, the entire relationship ends, because there was no basis for it in the beginning. Second, they struggled for the last year to sustain the emotion of love, which often became difficult with increasing demands on both parts. After spending time with them, I wondered what was the point of looking for love in the first place? If all love is, is an emotion that can only last for a short period of time, than why do people long for that feeling?

There are many reasons why so many of us are in search of that one special person. For some of us the reasons are not so obvious as they are for others. There are those who did not have love as children and lacked attention, so they long for a connection with another and the feeling that they were never able to receive. They go through life compromising themselves just to have that feeling for as long as they can. For others the motives are different. They may look for that one feeling that they had in their earlier years and try all their life to find it. But whatever the motives may be, there is something that is certain about all people: no one can sustain a normal existence without love.

With all the work involved in love and all its consequences, why bother to have it at all? The answer to this question is simple. Because during the brief period that it does happen, it fees like the beginning of the world itself.