Every Indigenous group has specific beliefs and essential needs that are found within their respective cultures. Those necessities manifest as religious principles or principles, values, stories, teachings, etc. Keeping those necessities in mind, I was throwing this idea around.

Once upon a semester, before returning home, my partner-in-academia and I were wondering why sometimes participating in culture can feel like the utmost fulfillment and happiness. Yet, other times it can feel like you're lacking something. We wondered why that thought crossed our minds. What were we missing? What were we seeking? What was it that we felt our holistic culture lacked?

This was where we reflected on the time we are currently situated in. We have social media. We have different societal pressures. We have a balancing act to perform as a Native existing in this pivotal moment where a lot of things muddle and mislead us.

This was our passing thought that felt interesting enough to share, but could be wrong. Nevertheless, I felt like writing about it.

We took into consideration the holistic needs of what we theorized every Native needs to feel a sense of completion in their lives. This included the physical position and community part, which is participating in cultural teachings, stories, and practices; speaking and being surrounded in our native language; being surrounded by our family and people; feeling in harmony with our ancestral or homelands. Another part is the spiritual part, which is prayer, ceremony, and expressions of traditional beliefs/practices.

So we had 3 seemingly complete necessities for Native people and each included some form of expression that we thought had roots in love. We love our land, people, and culture.

BUT, this was all a kind of platonic love. With our upbringing in this point in time, where does the societal pressure of romantic love fall?

We know that Natives have a different understanding of what romantic love should be, what it should look like, how it should be expressed, and who/what gets to condone that romantic love.

So my friend and I concluded that as a Native existing in the U.S. as of today. We hold romantic love as part of the holistic needs of an individual.

This doesn't mean it's required to maintain. We just meant that it's possible that young native people feel that romantic love with a lover/partner/significant other is needed to feel complete.

In some ways, this could be true or not. It's just interesting to think about how outside cultures shaped Indigenous cultures and create a new pressure that may not have existed before or wasn't seen as a "necessity" as it is now.

I'm not saying it's bad, but it's something we paid attention to. Perhaps romantic love has taken on more of a presence within our cultures that we don't acknowledge because it wasn't something we had to do before.

In that regard, romantic love can be demonized and seen as something discouraged to participate in. Shouldn't we talk about that some more? Romantic love is normal and is something that is shared among humans, and is seemingly limitless. It's worth thinking about.