A Bitter Post About Society's Misconceptions

If you know me well, you know that there are two things in this world that make me unbelievably happy beyond all reason: music and people falling in love. I am the worst in romantic movies, yelling at the couple when they leave each other and jumping for joy when they finally get back together. I'm that girl in your classes upon whom you can always depend for an "Awwww!" when a cute story is told. Knowing this about me, you might expect me to always have the perfect, adorable boyfriend and be madly in love, or at least be outrageously boy crazy. This, however, is not the case. I'm extremely picky about who I date, and therefore don't date much at all. I have a checklist in my head of what society tells me the perfect guy is supposed to be like, and when someone falls short of this list, I give up. The more I learn, the more I realize that society doesn't know what the heck it's talking about. An avid chick-flick watcher, I've compiled many of my ideas of what falling in love is supposed to be like from movies, seeing as how I've never actually fallen in love with anyone myself. However, through observing my own life, as well as the lives of my friends and acquaintances, I've found several holes in society's expectations that don't really occur in real life. And while I think, deep down, all girls know that most of these expectations they have in their head aren't realistic, they still expect these things, whether consciously or not. Quite honestly, I feel a little bitter about this. So, in an attempt to set things straight with myself, as well as, you know, the rest of the world (just kidding) I'm going to share with you the faults that I've found in the reasoning we've been shaped our entire lives to take on.

1. A guy will fix all of your problems.
I think that this is the main flaw in romantic reasoning. Almost every girl I know has said this phrase when times are tough: "I know I have friends and family who love me, but I just really wish I could just hug him. Then I'd feel so much better." I, too, have said this many, many times, and I testify to you that this is WRONG! If the guy (or girl. Sorry for all you male-gender folk reading this. I'm not hating on you. I'm just writing this from my point of view. I still love you, and this can apply to you too. <3)

2. A kiss will fix anything.
A hit in the plot of romantic movies/books/stories, etc. Boy screws up, big time. (Visa versa for guys reading this, sorry again) Boy and girl spend time apart, but they're still madly in love with each other, even though girl hates boy. Boy arrives spontaneously one day, girl sees him, gets angry, but wants him to still be in love with her. Boy decides that there are no good words to say sorry, so he just kisses girl. She kisses him back. They live happily ever after. I don't know about you, but from my experience, this is never the case in real life. Maybe I have issues, but I know it's not just me. A kiss never just fixes everything- it just makes things more complicated and hurts your already broken heart. It makes you feel pathetic afterward, for selling yourself out for a stupid little kiss. What about all the time you spent apart, convincing yourself that he was a jerk and that you're too good for him and remembering all the ways he did you wrong? Are those automatically not legitimate anymore just because he kissed you? Society seems to tell us that. I've found that the truth is a little closer to things being really awkward for a long time, fighting a lot, a lot of talking and hurt feelings, mistrust. Then, if it's real, they'll eventually work things out. But nothing's ever just solved with a kiss.

3. In real life, guys don't really stand outside your window with a stereo playing your favorite song.
I'll admit it, I've always secretly wanted someone to reenact this scene from Say Anything for my sake. But the truth is, most of the time, it just doesn't happen. I'm not saying that the world isn't full of many wonderful, romantic gestures. It's just that they're not as common as we have been conditioned to believe. If you've ever seen the movie 500 Days of Summer, there's a scene where one reel, his "Expectations" play next to another reel, his "Reality". This is what constantly goes on in my head: the expectations reel and the reality reel playing depressingly side-by-side. In the movie, his "Expectations" reel shows him showing up to her party, them talking and flirting the whole night, and finally sneaking off to her bedroom together. His "Reality" reel shows things being super awkward between them, him drinking by himself, and leaving when he sees her showing off her engagement ring from another man. I don't know how many times I've beat myself up because my unbelievably out of control "Expectations" reel and my "Reality" reel don't match up. The truth is, most people aren't nearly as brave as we believe them to be. They won't stand outside of our windows looking like complete idiots holding up stereos with their hearts on the line to prove they love us. It's normally something a lot smaller.

So there are some musings from the overly romantic mind of Alora Beach. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a hopeless romantic and believe that falling in love really is something magical and unexplainable, and that it deserves so much more credit than a lot of people give it. I'm just trying to convince myself to have more realistic expectations. :)

So, song of the blog today... that's a hard one. I was trying to think of a "realistic" love song, and the only ones I could thing of were incredibly bitter and depressing (yeah, I guess you can figure out what kind of mood I've been in lately), and I didn't really want to subject you, my lovely readers (if you exist) to bitterness and depression and more cynicism than is already present in this blog post. I've decided on "A Beautiful Mess" by Jason Mraz. This is one of my absolute favorite Jason Mraz songs. And that's exactly what most relationships end up being: a beautiful mess. I hope you all are having a fabulous summer, and having amazing fun! :D