I can be a bit of a hopeless romantic when it comes to pop culture and literature. Few activities will bring the same warm feeling as taking in a good love story or romantic poem. And in truth, romantically-driven cultural artifacts are difficult to escape, regardless of genre. These are wonderful and beautiful.

But there is a glaring problem: an unnecessarily large number of authors, filmmakers, musicians, etc act as though romantic love is the singular be-all and end-all of human existence. The descriptions of falling in love or being in love are seemingly transcendent and “better” than all other human experience.

Take this one, for example:

“You know you’re in love the moment you can touch the stars without reaching.” –Melisa M. Hamling

According to Hamling, the world opens us to us the moment we fall in love. So are the massive number of people who are not currently in love… just not fully experiencing the world? And what about people who are aromantic? I firmly believe that all of these people get to have complex, beautiful, glorious experiences of this world, too. So when will we reflect this more in our cultural stories?

While I don’t personally identify as aromantic, I have rejoiced alongside my friends who do identify in such a way when a movie or book finally ends with something other than an admission of love or a kiss. This normativity of romance in popular culture is irritating mostly because it tends to incorporate some idea that no story can be complete and no life fully lived until romance has been achieved. In reality, a great deal of people are not ‘in love.’ And I refuse to believe that the fullness of the existence is only exclusive to one group of people- those ‘in love.’

But there are a couple of answers here.

First, if you’re an author, think about being inclusive in your stories. Have you incorporated any aromantic characters (or even, dare I say, main characters) in a dignified way? This section of the LGBTQ+ community is all but ignored. Be the one to create a story that reflects the real world and the diverse communities within it.

Second, if you’re on the aromantic scale, fear not. As I looked through love quotes while writing this article, I found that most of them need not be applied to romantic situations. Let me depict this by sharing some “love quotes” from an online article (the same one where I found the quote above).

“To get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.” –Mark Twain

“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.” –Charles Dickens

“We never get enough of… believing in love.” –Shemar Moore

None of these require romance. Falling in that type of love is not the only way to epitomize the human experience. Love of any and all kinds is the meaning of the joy of being a human being.