There is something almost holy about the way “Everything Is Romantic” has taken over our feeds. Like heartbreak got dipped in glitter and handed a halo. You scroll through Instagram and there she is; a girl with mascara tears and a messy bun, spinning beneath fairy lights as if the world didn’t end yesterday. Her caption says “fall in love again and again, even when I shouldn’t.” And you get it. You feel it in your ribs. You double tap like it’s prayer.
Charli XCX, pop prophet of chaos and clarity, did what only she could. She turned yearning into performance art. That lyric, “fall in love again and again,” lives between irony and sincerity. It is both a wink and a wound. A confession that we know better, but do it anyway.
Maybe that’s the real contagion. Not heartbreak, not hope, but the need to keep chasing the next spark that reminds us we’re still alive. We fall into people, into songs, into aesthetics, into moments that feel like déjà vu and first love at once. Maybe it isn’t foolishness. Maybe it’s worship. Because if everything truly is romantic, then even the ache is divine.
The chemistry of heartache.
Falling in love is science in stilettos. Your brain floods with dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin; the holy trinity of delusion. The same chemicals that light up when you win, when you dream, when you hope. Your body mistakes chaos for chemistry and thinks, this must be the one.
Your brain does not care that it ended badly last time. It is addicted to patterns, to the rhythm of recognition. The moment something feels familiar, it clings to it like a lifeline. It remembers the laughter before the silence, the warmth before the distance. Even when something hurts, the mind edits the memory until it shines again.
So when you rewatch your comfort show or text someone you promised to block forever, your neurons whisper softly, “hey, we know this feeling. Let’s do it again.”
Love. Heartbreak. Repeat. The cycle is intoxicating because it gives us something to believe in. We chase the first high, desperate to feel that alive again. Maybe we’re not hopeless romantics. Maybe we’re scientists in denial; biology wearing lip gloss, calling it destiny.
The aesthetic of repetition.
We say we want change, but we are creatures of return. We rewatch old shows, relisten to old songs, walk into the same cafés where ghosts still sit across from us. We build altars out of nostalgia and call it healing.
Every generation does it. The Renaissance had sonnets. We have soft launches and curated vulnerability. They wrote odes about unrequited love; we make reels about romanticising loneliness. The fonts changed, the heartbreak didn’t.
Charli’s “Everything Is Romantic” embodies that pattern. It turns the cycle itself into a song. Heartbreak becomes choreography. Pain becomes a photo op. It’s saying, “yes, it hurt, but my God, wasn’t it beautiful?”
We don’t fall in love just with people. We fall for versions, of ourselves, of summers, of cities that once held us. Every repetition is a resurrection. Every again is a whispered maybe this time. It isn’t weakness to try again. It is faith. Faith that the next story might end softer, or at least end beautifully.
The infinite scroll of emotion.
Here enters the internet: our glittering accomplice and cruelest muse. We live in emotional reruns now. We cry, we post, we scroll, we heal, and then we start over. You post a picture that aches a little, someone likes it, and suddenly the algorithm rewards your heartbreak. Pain becomes performance. Grief becomes content.
Every reel, every trending sound, every “POV: you’re in love with love” clip becomes a digital déjà vu. You watch, you relate, you repost, and somehow, you relive. The first time you cry, it is heartbreak. The second, it is art. The third, it is aesthetic. We rehearse our emotions until they can be consumed.
And maybe that’s why we keep falling. Because online, there’s always another life waiting in your drafts. The algorithm doesn’t care if it’s healing you or haunting you. It just knows you’ll press replay.
The human condition (hope is rebellion).
Here’s the thing. We don’t fall in love again and again because we are foolish. We do it because we are hopeful. Because even after the heartbreak, something in us still believes that love will come back softer next time. That maybe the next song won’t hurt so much when it ends.
To love again is to rebel against cynicism. It’s saying, “yes, I’ve been broken before, but I still believe in magic.” It’s choosing tenderness over armour. It’s the wild, unhinged hope that maybe this time, it will last.
The universe expands and collapses, then expands again. Maybe we do the same. Break, bloom, repeat. Hope is humanity’s favourite delusion, and thank God for it. Because without it, we’d forget how to feel at all.
So yes, we fall again. We rebuild from the ruins. We write new stories in old handwriting. We laugh at love’s absurdity and whisper, “fine, one more time.“
Replay, rewind, romanticise (fALL IN LOVE AGAIN AND AGAIN).
Somewhere right now, someone is making a reel with “Everything Is Romantic” playing faintly in the background. They’re holding a coffee cup like it’s a confession. Their caption says “falling again.” Maybe it’s ironic. Maybe it’s sacred.
Because that lyric is not a warning. It’s a mirror. We’re meant to fall again. Not because we forget, but because we remember. Because even when it ends, it was beautiful while it lasted.
Everything is romantic. The first kiss. The final message. The crying on your bathroom floor. The healing months later. The repeat. The heartbreak. The trying.
So go on. Fall again. Love again. Break again. Because maybe the point was never to get it right. Maybe the point was simply to keep feeling.
Want more emotional anarchy, unhinged tenderness, and essays that flirt with existentialism? Slide into Her Campus at MUJ: we’re basically the Wi-Fi hotspot for heartbeats, chaos, and unfiltered enthusiasm.
And if you ever wondered who decided to make 10 reels on the same audio; yeah, that’s me, Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ screaming into the void so you don’t have to whisper.