R&G|MAGAZINE EDITION #4 - NOVEMBER 2014 | Page 16

E ven in my near-late twenties I still get the overwhelming urge to run, scream, giggle and overly blush around guys I like - symptoms that started when I hit my early teens and sadly they won’t go away. Often I wonder if the ‘boy meets girl’ scenario can or ever could be calm and cool? The amount of energy I put into trying to act casual around my crushes is unbearably tiring and feels a lot like self-inflicted torture! I just don’t understand where this overgirly demon comes from - and will I ever exorcise her and her expectations?! Due to a questionable amount of brainwashing love-content in movies and series, as well as music, we’ve been led to believe love is simply falling into a hunk’s arms and the rest is magical history. Why aren’t conversations always witty and exciting as they are in movies or novels? Why can’t fights turn into romantic and passionate makeups (Fifty shades of Grey anyone?) and most importantly, why can’t most men buy flowers and boxes of chocolates? (A bar of chocolate should never count!!!) Between my overromantic demon and not so romantic suitors I often wonder if I am expecting too much from this animal called love. Why is it so darn complicated and hard to tame? Why should I even be writing this rant? Shouldn’t love be the easiest and most natural thing for us beings? But alas, it seems the saying men are from mars and women are from venus is true - sadly it has been a fact for centuries! But what about the love portrayed in the media? Somehow my subconscious always refuses to believe love is bland or is this my brainwashed-self talking? Geez - see what I meant by complicated. For a world with two sexes apparently meant for each other we often come off as incompatible - It’s true! Sometimes I wonder why we are even meant for each other when most relationships are filled with chaos - from fights, cheating and down-right childish behaviour! Now I know at this point I sound negative and 99% pessimist but I’m not writing to mock love as you’ll see - soon. expect too much and to us they offer too little! It seems like the whole human race is at a stale mate when it comes to love. Each sex in its own trench and going nowhere! Sounds depressing - I know! I, like most girls, am a hopeless romantic and most men are - well - not hopeless romantics (quoting song lyrics is far from romantic - it must be a Mars thing). But it has also dawned on me that this statement means we do know each other - more than we think! Of course the media has forcefully given us false information regarding how we should engage in love. It has turned our individual wants and desires into a singular and calculated need. To tell the honest truth, I’d never “need” a man to open my car door if I hadn’t seen or heard about it from somewhere else! Why should I allow someone else’s experiences determine what I should find romantically acceptable? I’d take a plate of donuts over flowers any day but this isn’t ro mantic - at least this hasn’t featured in a movie, so it can’t possibly be! The problem isn’t love, it’s the fact that we’ve lost our individualism when it comes to love. Take it from a guy’s perspective - why buy a girl flowers when she hardly mentions them or even does gardening? I can understand how we confuse men by wanting affection through things we never give two seconds of thought on! And why should we women spend hours obsessing over our looks for men who most likely like us the way we are - curves, fat and all? The real problem is we don’t know how to romantically love! Instead of living in the moment we live for the moment - eager to have our hearts taken when we ourselves don’t know how to give them away for love. My theory is to dispose of all the romantic-nonsense you’ve been exposed to and make your own story! Ask yourself what you want. So what if you’re single at 30 and don’t mind? And so what if you don’t want a romantic dinner but would rather stay in and cuddle all night? Love is a personal experience, a choice, and you need to understand this if you are going to enjoy it! My grandmother used to look down on pointing fingers, a trait I’ve kept to this day. It would be easy for me to say men are to blame and yes - I would probably come up with valid points to support my claim but it would also be the same if the roles were to change. To men, we too seem like the problem - we PAGE 16