So guess what? Valentine’s Day is near. Although, you don’t need me to tell you that. If you’re anything like me, you can already feel the dread of Valentine’s in your stomach. You may be even more aware of its proximity if you see at least three reels or posts about being woefully single on your Instagram for-you page every day. And since time immemorial, posts about Valentine’s Day have been less about celebrating love and more about collectively laughing or crying (or both) about how desperate we are to even remotely experience romance. The latter sentiment is further amplified because of how many people resonate with it. I know that nine out of my ten friends lie in the same category as me, all of whom experience varying degrees of yearning: from “It would be nice to have someone” (sane) to “WHY NOT ME?!” (pulling one’s hair out). I unfortunately lie on the higher end of the spectrum.Â
But why is that the case? Why do we yearn? And why does that yearning translate into self-deprecating humour at the expense of our singleness?Â
Well, yearning is far from a pleasant feeling. No matter how poetic the word sounds, yearning is the dull, quiet ache of wanting to fulfil our deepest desires. I recently read this blog post on Medium about yearning, in which one line particularly stuck out to me: “yearning is grief disguised as hope”. I don’t remember reading such a devastating sentence before, which is why it’s been on my mind for a while. However, I’ve still not gotten to the root of the question—why is romance our deepest desire?
It started from an evolutionary instinct, which turned into a widespread social norm that finally got magnified a hundredfold by books, films, and social media: the all-consuming “necessity” to find someone, with the ultimate goal of starting a family with them. What was once meant for the practical purpose of multiplying our kind is now an emotional need. Because who doesn’t want to feel the thrill of butterflies in our stomach when someone lovingly looks at us, or tenderly holds our hand? Movies paint a pretty picture of it all. Yet, we often fall in love with that pretty picture more than the reality behind it. How can we be blamed if we don’t know what the real thing is like? It’s not like those movies want to show you the messy terms and conditions that come with the rosy romance they sell. After all, they are meant to provide us an escape from our bleak reality so that we can happily bask in their warm glow while devouring a tub of ice cream for two hours straight.Â
Although it seems that now we’re finally waking up to the discrepancy between movies and real life, the former is merely a highly stylised and filtered version of what love really is. Thus, we outrightly counteract this by making our single selves the butt of the joke—so all those reels about waiting for someone’s text for five hours or being ghosted after you thought you’d remain friends is our way of keeping things painfully real. Sure, doing so is… painful, but that’s what the humour is for, right? Whether humour is our way of communicating our secret envy of all the couples around us, or to cover up our feverish yearning, it sure does make it a bit easier to deal with our unmet desires and resonate with others like us.
Finally, to end on a rather forced but necessary inspirational note: remember I once said, “Trust the Universe”? I mean it, even if I don’t feel it yet. There’s a reason why the Universe guides you where it does. Maybe the reason it isn’t guiding you to a prospective partner is because of the uninspiring market that currently surrounds you. Or maybe you’re not ready for it yet, even if you feel like you are, because yearning does not equal readiness for a relationship. To be honest, I speak for myself more than anyone else when I say this. Anyway, the point is, let the coming Valentine’s be a day for dissing our singleness while being patiently aware of the right time and place to be in a romantic relationship. Maybe your soulmate will be in college, maybe not… You never know.Â
I just hope I’m able to follow my own advice, at least until the 13th of February. However, I’ll keep a stock of ice cream ready just in case.
The Medium blog – https://yourstrulydani.medium.com/the-paradox-of-yearning-38f1a7b5d2d5