“To be loved is to be known.”
Love is not just one thing. It’s the small acts, truly taking the time to know someone and appreciating them through thick and thin. Love takes many forms. Love is proclamations on rooftops, remembering someone’s uber-specific drink order, what foods they do and don’t like — simply expressing your appreciation for them existing and being in your life.
Ever since I was a young girl, I have been in awe of the notion of love. The glances, the passion, the excitement, the obvious adoration — I love it all. Dancing in ravishing dresses in Disney movies with the main characters’ future husbands was my dream (obviously, there are issues with Disney’s portrayal of relationships and women in general, but just let me have this one). I wanted to be the girl in the pretty long dress being encapsulated with a boy in the romantic moonlight. I want to be the girl guys get flowers for. I want the fireworks. I want the kind of love people write songs about. I want to be consumed and enamored with someone. I want to smile when I hear someone’s name or even have a fleeting thought of them. Love is bewitching to our bodies, souls, and minds (thank you, Mr. Darcy), and I hope no one regrets loving someone. Loving someone so deeply means that you were or are connected with another human being, and I think that is magnificent.
I love love so much that I have a Pinterest board dedicated to it and to my future wedding. I have an entire Spotify playlist devoted to songs for dancing in the kitchen with my future significant other. I know how I want to be loved and appreciated. I have been lucky enough to feel true adoration in my lifetime. I have felt seen, heard, and known by the people I surround myself with every single day.
Especially since it is officially Valentine’s week, I have seen tremendous amounts of flower bouquets in grocery stores, rows upon rows of chocolates, and Valentine’s Day cards filling up the card aisle with hues of pink and red. Just the other day, I saw a teenage boy buying flowers and a card in the self-checkout line at Target. Maybe there is hope for our future. Again, it’s the little things!
In honor of it being Valentine’s week, here are my favorite love songs:
- Forever – Noah Kahan
- Somethin’ Stupid – Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra
- Photograph – Ed Sheeran
- Those Eyes – New West
- The Way I Love You – Michal Leah
- Can’t Help Falling in Love – Christian Leave
- I Love You So – The Walters
- Glue Song – beabadoobee, Clairo
- Real Love Baby – Father John Misty
- Turning Page – Sleeping At Last
Every romance book or rom-com follows the same narrative basis — or at least a variation of it. The guy and girl first meet, either date and fall in love or instantly become enemies to cover up their undeniable attraction towards each other (because there is a fine line), have a falling out or a miscommunication and then get back together at the end of the story. Typically, it’s a happy ending. But I eat it up every single time. I enjoy thinking about romance in this fictional, happy-ending way. Some may call it looking at love through rose-colored lenses — I call it looking with hope.
However, that is one facet of love: romantic love. That is not the only avenue of endearment. Everyone shows love in their everyday lives. Whether it’s through bonding with a co-worker, talking to a long-distance best friend or partner, picking up food for your family, etc. One of my favorite topics to discuss is the five love languages. I ask everyone around me what they think or know their love language is because I think it is a beautiful way to categorize giving and receiving adoration. How you love is part of what makes you, you. For example, my love language to others is gift-giving, and my receiving language is words of affirmation. I am one of those people who wants to just hear someone say that they want to hang out sometime, regardless of whether we actually do or not. Love doesn’t have to be defined in only one way. We learn new ways we love and care to be loved every single day.
Unfortunately, love can be misconstrued through media on TV, in magazines, songs, etc., but especially through social media. If a man respects and loves his girlfriend, fiancee, wife, or partner, they are labeled “p***y whipped.” If a man goes shopping with his partner, does their nails or really any self-care in general, they are labeled “fruity.” The teenage boy I mentioned earlier, buying the flowers, seemed almost embarrassed about buying the flowers in the first place. While I thought it was endearing and romantic, I think he was afraid of what others might have thought. He might have been afraid of being made fun of by his friends or other men in the store for buying flowers for his significant other. As disheartening as it is, men are not allowed the same grace as women are to be romantic. We expect romance from men, but oftentimes, when they express it, they are ridiculed by other men.
Recently, on TikTok, there have been relationship trends that women typically do on their male partners like the “Beckham Test” (the woman sets up a camera in a room — typically a kitchen — plays a song, and begins dancing spontaneously, waiting to see if her partner joins in). If her partner doesn’t dance with her, their relationship is deemed doomed. There are multiple other trends like this: the “bird test” and the Tyla “Water” test. The “ick” trend has been taken to a new extreme, and it completely undermines the fact that people are not perfect. We are all going to have flaws, but the “ick factor” should not determine if you are interested in someone or not. Because of social media, we have begun to overthink our love lives.
Love is complicated, trying, difficult, yet so valuable. It is one of the most precious aspects and treasures of our lives on this Earth. It is a privilege to love someone and to be loved. As I said, “to be loved is to be known.” We all deserve to be known.