Love; we hear people rave about it, craze over it, and fight for it every day. But in today's world, the concept of love has been altered. We subscribe to the prescriptions of technology. Claiming that love comes from a like, text, and follow on social media. If this is the greatest declaration of love in the 21st century, I don't want it.
There is a whole lot of projection that goes on during the infatuation phase of love or as some may call it "during the fall". This comes before mine or your existence. However, this projection and natural pull towards certain people, it is all amplified by the tools of technology and not for the better.
Living on a college campus, surrounded by new adults trying to make sense of the world, I see this a lot. We read into every little one of someone's actions. Questioning why someone liked our Instagram post, decided to Snapchat us that day, and how that translates to their intentions.
The more you sit and think about it, it becomes almost hilarious. Measuring someone's emotions based on the click of a button. This "test", this measurement; it is not real. It simply does not exist and or describe how people feel about you. People are liking the part of you that you so carefully decided to share with the internet.
We glorify this concept of love. We view peoples pictures on social media, the ones they so carefully selected, and we start projecting our qualities onto them. "They seem family oriented," "You could tell they're smart/ kind." How do we take this away from one share?
I once had a communications professor and he told me there is a part of ourselves known as the "shadow". The shadow is what we bury, it is the underlying thoughts and emotions that we have not come to terms with or identify with just yet.
Everyone has a negative and positive shadow they conceal from the world. Leading us to project our positive qualities onto those we love and negative onto those we do not. We are too stubborn to recognize this in ourselves.
Living in a world fueled by social media, it is easy to fall into this pattern. Viewing someone's Instagram post and allowing for your mind to wander to the potential possibility of what truly IS that person.
It is all a chemical and euphoric effect that is not a true testament to who people truly are. This is why we see failed relationships. Because one day you wake up and say "You're not you anymore." But the "you" that you know, is the vision of who you desperately wanted your partner to be. It is not who they actually are, just a fiction of imagination and a whole lot of projection.
I have personally never been in love. It is something every person knows they want. I sometimes get anxious and wrestle with the possibilities of love. Wondering when, how, with who. But there is no need to rush any of this. I am a firm believer in the universe. You receive what you are ready for and who you are ready for. Perhaps I am not quite ready yet and that is okay.
You fall in love with someone's mind and soul. The way they laugh or kink their eyebrow while reading, not what they post on social media. Living in a social media-fueled world, it is easy to misinterpret what love truly is and how it should be.
The person you are meant to find is out there. Once you find this individual, you grow side by side. You do not place expectations or risk upon them. You simply enjoy one another, grow as lovers and as friends.
If someone truly loves and cares for you, you do not measure their affections by how many times they have liked your pictures. But how many times they made you smile, expanded your mind and the depths of who you are.
As a 21st century millennial, it is difficult and easy to get lost in the vicious cycle of social media. Creating expectations of not just on love but how life should be. But people only share their happiest moments on these platforms; not their heartache, life experiences, and what truly makes them who they are.
Let's unplug! Technology complicates things, even the simplest things like acts of love. Get to know people for who they are not what they put on display. Or better yet, get to know yourself! Strip away the expectations of what love and who you're supposed to love should be. The rest will follow and the universe will work its magic. Cancel the subscriptions, its worth it.
