Does this sound like you?
Couples doing couple things makes you smile.
Hearing about your friends' relationships is one of the best things.
You keep looking for new rom-coms because you’ve seen them all.
Falling in love easily is a problem you have.
If you checked off all of those, then I have some bad news - you’re a romantic.
Don’t worry, though. We’re some of the best people in the world. We’re above average at relationships and we give killer advice because we’ve seen it all (romance movies teach us well). If he acts like he’s cheating, he’s probably cheating, Lauren. If you keep thinking of Rachel, then break up with Karen, Brad. If you really really love her, then go after her, Jason. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be, Taylor. We know what the right and wrong decisions are, and even though we can’t take our own advice sometimes, it’s clear to us too. We love love, we look for it everywhere, and, best yet, we know people. We feel all the joy, all the excitement, all the rushes, and all the heartbreaks. We know when to talk, when to listen, and when to bust out the jar of ice cream.
Does this sound like you?
Being single is sort of… weird.
Having someone know when you sleep, how you like your Chipotle, and what shows you binge-watch makes you giddy.
You dream about love a few times a week.
Sometimes, just sometimes, you imagine yourself as "Allie" in The Notebook.
Now if you checked those off, then looks like you only have a few days to live.
Just kidding, but you are a seriously serious romantic, or SSR for short.
Being an SSR can be a lot of work. You make SURE your friends’ boyfriends like you, at times you reminisce on past relationships, and you can be an emotional mess. That means when we’re sad, our tears can drown a thousand cities. When we’re angry, our heat can burn someone whole. But when we’re in love, there is nobody else we see. Our hearts are fractious, too headstrong to control. We stand no chance of fighting our feelings when the organ is already singing their name, breaking themselves into pieces, and handing them to the other person instinctively. Here, it says, is all of me.
I sat in Dukes listening to my friends tell me about their long-distance, long-term relationships. For one friend, she describes the meep sounds that she makes to her boyfriend because of her love for sloths. She tells me about how they fall asleep on FaceTime and wake each other up with meep noises, and I smile so hard, remembering my own long distance relationship. My other friend tells me how, sometimes, she and her boyfriend don’t even talk. They’ll just have conversations solely made up of noises. In a weird way, I was living vicariously through the conversation, reliving my own relationships. I remembered the one that reached two years with 807 miles between us. I remembered the comfort, the boredom, and the love.
To all of you romantics out there, don’t ever lose faith in love. Don’t let heartbreak, opinions, or life get in the way of how you feel. Your appreciation for emotions that are so important in this world is one-of-a-kind. You are what makes the world so magical and you are what people search for. You are refreshing, clean water, and everyone is fighting for a taste.
Sidenote: If you love love as much as me, check out "Modern Love" in "The New York Times." The articles range in all different types of love - finding love, losing love, learning to love, etc. The stories can be about divorce, death, childhood crushes, you get the gist. They also have podcasts which are great to listen to while walking to class. You can thank me now.
