this made me cry TT__TT as someone who feels similarly about the concept of romantic love but is also enamoured by the place it takes in nearly all the media i have ever loved and consumed, i absolutely adore how you think about romance. i love how you let yourself be taught by others on what love is, how you let romantic love be this loose, continually evolving definition in your mind and marvel at all the different ways people live it. i find that i struggle and get stuck on the fact that "this is something i don't experience" so much that i forget to admire and let myself learn about just how beautiful and complex and surprising romance can be in the people and stories around me.
the trope of the "single spark" of human-to-human connection snowballing erratically and helplessly into this oversized infatuation someone ends up carrying around with them has always baffled me to the point where i read it with the thrill but also implausibility i'd use to read fantasy, but seeing the way you reframed it here is just so heartwarming and dare i say... loving. i love this: "The process of making romanticization into romance!" and this: "the high of knowing there is someone out there different from what you’ve always known." what a beautiful reframing of the "interesting..." trope!!! the fact that it is rather that you're re-discovering yourself through the unknown of another person's connection with you!
i loved this so much, thank you for your beautiful writing as always. i feel very healed and warm inside after reading this :)
i think definitely when i was much younger i felt a bit more isolated by my relationship with romantic love than i do now. it was this thing that everyone knew how to talk about in high school, and my inability to understand it in any personal, internal way was... grating? it infuriated me. i guess i was bitter about it, and ended up projecting it towards friends who talked about it openly. but looking back now, i had the exact same attitude towards everything i felt like i couldn't know fully. like complicated math or science, or team sports. as if my inaptitude in it was a challenge that i'd failed to meet and i'd forever be angry about it.
but now that i'm much older and the things i don't know are more a gift than a thorn in my side, romance is also now a curiosity? something i consume the way i watch documentaries on infinity and read books on hyperspace. bc if you don't know something, then that just makes interpersonal dynamics — often so hard, often so tedious — a little bit easier. i can love people through the things i don't know, and therefore the things that others can teach me. this little unfilled void in my head becomes a space for the people and the things and the media that Do know. it's a win-win. or it wants to be a win-win. i want to let it.
all this to say thank you for how thoughtfully and beautifully you worded this comment. i do think of it as love, but i don't mind if people don't consider it loving enough. of course they don't. they see love differently than i might forever. and yet here you are, both kindred spirit and someone who empathizes enough to understand the underlying things. i don't think there's much for me to say except thank you — but also, i completely feel you. it's hard, when the things you don't know feel alienating. it will never not be hard, probably. but there are ways to reframe and restart, and that's really all that life has been for me. reframing and restarting.
(and yes yes yes about re-discovering yourself through the unknown-ness / uncertainty of trying to navigate your connection to another person, in whatever form)
your writing is always fun!! :] and that’s okay because it’ll probably take me a while to get ‘round to reading it anyway! the line about finding a thousand more reasons to love someone so long as you’ve found one just made me wanna cry a little bit so it feels like i should at least give the whole piece a chance <3 thank YOU for replying aaaa!!
oh for sure !! if i had to isolate one theme from truth or dare it's probably the role that words play in relationships and understanding/getting to know someone. it's very obviously about truth and lies, but i think it's just as blatantly about the space in between those two things. but anyway. i just meant to say it's a very appropriate story for a concept such as finding reasons to love someone. really only takes that tiny beginning, real or not real. i hope you're doing well and thank you for indulging me <3
i'm glad to hear it was fun in all its rambling !! and oooh god i don't know if i meant my truth or dare name drop to be a passionate rec necessarily, but it really is an intriguing little work, with such delicate art and so much to chew on. if you do end up reading it in earnest, i hope you find something in it to enjoy. thank you for reading and replying to this letter 🫶🏼
i've been meaning to read this for some time & i'm so glad i finally did. it's funny how i always read things exactly when i need to hear them the most.
i relate so much to what you said in so many ways. in how romantic love seems like this thing that exists outside of myself, even despite my proven ability to live inside it. like i'm a giddy toddler shaking a snowglobe and observing shoujo protagonists hold hands for the first time, a million times over. i could certainly psychoanalyze this, and there would be truth in saying i'm the way i am because of what's wrong with me.
the weight of romance feels less tangible in my hands than any other love; and there's many reasons that could make their case for why i feel that way, even when i have such affection for it in the stories i read, like yourself.
i love the way you compared love to language. because it is. not in the "five love languages" way necessarily, but in the way that it's something that builds and changes and shifts (and sometimes withers and dies) over time. when you talk about your perception of romantic love... it resonates with me so much because of how simultaneously distant and intimate i feel with it. and how i don't exactly understand why we think of romantic love as this great big, the-very-most-important, put it on a pedestal, commemorate it with a statue type thing; yet i still do understand why it means so much to everyone, especially because it means just as much to me. except it doesn't. but actually it does.
very confusing and not at all.
ahhh i hope my comment doesn't read like nonsense, so i'll stop here. but this was lovely, your writing is so nice & evocative. it was a joy to read this <3 thanks so much for writing
this made me cry TT__TT as someone who feels similarly about the concept of romantic love but is also enamoured by the place it takes in nearly all the media i have ever loved and consumed, i absolutely adore how you think about romance. i love how you let yourself be taught by others on what love is, how you let romantic love be this loose, continually evolving definition in your mind and marvel at all the different ways people live it. i find that i struggle and get stuck on the fact that "this is something i don't experience" so much that i forget to admire and let myself learn about just how beautiful and complex and surprising romance can be in the people and stories around me.
the trope of the "single spark" of human-to-human connection snowballing erratically and helplessly into this oversized infatuation someone ends up carrying around with them has always baffled me to the point where i read it with the thrill but also implausibility i'd use to read fantasy, but seeing the way you reframed it here is just so heartwarming and dare i say... loving. i love this: "The process of making romanticization into romance!" and this: "the high of knowing there is someone out there different from what you’ve always known." what a beautiful reframing of the "interesting..." trope!!! the fact that it is rather that you're re-discovering yourself through the unknown of another person's connection with you!
i loved this so much, thank you for your beautiful writing as always. i feel very healed and warm inside after reading this :)
i think definitely when i was much younger i felt a bit more isolated by my relationship with romantic love than i do now. it was this thing that everyone knew how to talk about in high school, and my inability to understand it in any personal, internal way was... grating? it infuriated me. i guess i was bitter about it, and ended up projecting it towards friends who talked about it openly. but looking back now, i had the exact same attitude towards everything i felt like i couldn't know fully. like complicated math or science, or team sports. as if my inaptitude in it was a challenge that i'd failed to meet and i'd forever be angry about it.
but now that i'm much older and the things i don't know are more a gift than a thorn in my side, romance is also now a curiosity? something i consume the way i watch documentaries on infinity and read books on hyperspace. bc if you don't know something, then that just makes interpersonal dynamics — often so hard, often so tedious — a little bit easier. i can love people through the things i don't know, and therefore the things that others can teach me. this little unfilled void in my head becomes a space for the people and the things and the media that Do know. it's a win-win. or it wants to be a win-win. i want to let it.
all this to say thank you for how thoughtfully and beautifully you worded this comment. i do think of it as love, but i don't mind if people don't consider it loving enough. of course they don't. they see love differently than i might forever. and yet here you are, both kindred spirit and someone who empathizes enough to understand the underlying things. i don't think there's much for me to say except thank you — but also, i completely feel you. it's hard, when the things you don't know feel alienating. it will never not be hard, probably. but there are ways to reframe and restart, and that's really all that life has been for me. reframing and restarting.
(and yes yes yes about re-discovering yourself through the unknown-ness / uncertainty of trying to navigate your connection to another person, in whatever form)
your writing is always fun!! :] and that’s okay because it’ll probably take me a while to get ‘round to reading it anyway! the line about finding a thousand more reasons to love someone so long as you’ve found one just made me wanna cry a little bit so it feels like i should at least give the whole piece a chance <3 thank YOU for replying aaaa!!
oh for sure !! if i had to isolate one theme from truth or dare it's probably the role that words play in relationships and understanding/getting to know someone. it's very obviously about truth and lies, but i think it's just as blatantly about the space in between those two things. but anyway. i just meant to say it's a very appropriate story for a concept such as finding reasons to love someone. really only takes that tiny beginning, real or not real. i hope you're doing well and thank you for indulging me <3
this was so fun to read! gonna go read truth or dare now because you’ve intrigued me <3
i'm glad to hear it was fun in all its rambling !! and oooh god i don't know if i meant my truth or dare name drop to be a passionate rec necessarily, but it really is an intriguing little work, with such delicate art and so much to chew on. if you do end up reading it in earnest, i hope you find something in it to enjoy. thank you for reading and replying to this letter 🫶🏼
i've been meaning to read this for some time & i'm so glad i finally did. it's funny how i always read things exactly when i need to hear them the most.
i relate so much to what you said in so many ways. in how romantic love seems like this thing that exists outside of myself, even despite my proven ability to live inside it. like i'm a giddy toddler shaking a snowglobe and observing shoujo protagonists hold hands for the first time, a million times over. i could certainly psychoanalyze this, and there would be truth in saying i'm the way i am because of what's wrong with me.
the weight of romance feels less tangible in my hands than any other love; and there's many reasons that could make their case for why i feel that way, even when i have such affection for it in the stories i read, like yourself.
i love the way you compared love to language. because it is. not in the "five love languages" way necessarily, but in the way that it's something that builds and changes and shifts (and sometimes withers and dies) over time. when you talk about your perception of romantic love... it resonates with me so much because of how simultaneously distant and intimate i feel with it. and how i don't exactly understand why we think of romantic love as this great big, the-very-most-important, put it on a pedestal, commemorate it with a statue type thing; yet i still do understand why it means so much to everyone, especially because it means just as much to me. except it doesn't. but actually it does.
very confusing and not at all.
ahhh i hope my comment doesn't read like nonsense, so i'll stop here. but this was lovely, your writing is so nice & evocative. it was a joy to read this <3 thanks so much for writing