the stories we tell about love

Romantic love is capacious. And I mean that not in the mystical sense – it cannot contain anything or everything and it is never without conditions – but rather it is capacious in the daily way that any expression of love might also express trust, doubt, regret, resignation, humor, self-congratulation, or sacrifice. Love can contain all of this, but love stories rarely do.

Mandy Len Catron

After talking to my old college friend Abby and reading how to fall in love with anyone by Mandy Len Catron, I’ve been thinking about the stories we tell about love. In college, I took a sociology class on love (and relationships and cohabitation), and it was interesting thinking about how many changes have occurred in the marriage sphere. 

When I scroll my Instagram, I can actually see the recent engagements or weddings. (No hate, just wish I knew more single people!) And so I picked up Catron’s book. I’m not sure what I expected, but I enjoyed it. Catron takes you through some of the lessons we’ve been told about love and weaves her own story into it.

I’m limiting myself to romantic love here because it’s more of a symbol in our culture (although I am currently reading Big Friendship) and there are so many narratives concerning it. I love the tension Catron’s story displays and honestly, all our stories display. It isn’t an easy beginning, middle, and end. I can speak for myself that I’ve not had much of a beginning.

the reality

When love stories are told, there’s this inevitability. He speaks with confidence, a gleam in his eyes. She lights up and trips over her words. We outsource our stories to fate and destiny and the universe. But in reality, love isn’t really all that simple. If it was, we wouldn’t see so many opt out of the dating system. 

People can try and try and try to find their person, but sometimes it doesn’t work.

These love stories don’t include the doubt, the questioning, the fear that comes with relationships. Or even the mystery of your own heart. Not quite knowing what you feel and what to do with that. 

As a wannabe storyteller, it feels dishonest (both in reality, but also emotionally) to leave out these parts that may not feel so good in retrospect. We always ask lovers, “How did you know?” We never ask if they ever had a moment of doubt. Questions are cast aside like yesterday’s news, so we can bask in the moment of a “perfect” story. I’m not trying to say there aren’t great stories about love. But a perfect story can include all the elements of regret and humor without it being detrimental to the love it testifies to.

the black box

A while ago, I wrote on the mystery of love and in particular, its timing. We can’t predict when it will come and how long it will stay. There’s no telling what bumps in the road are ahead when love arrives. I love Catron’s metaphor: a black box.

We don’t get all of the details even when we’re in the midst of the story. I can’t read his mind. You can hardly articulate your attraction to them. She can’t explain why they got matched when they have nothing in common. It’s my temptation to look for all the things the black box hides. I use all the methods I’ve got: books, the internet, friends to get closer to a sense of revelation, of understanding. The funny thing about revelation is that it’s spontaneous. You can’t plan for it to come. It just does.

Love is similar in that way. In fact, you’re not even sure it’s coming at all.

But if my Instagram has shown me anything, love has a tendency to be right around the corner, hiding away when it’s not in your vantage point.

(Or maybe that’s just a story we love to keep telling about love. Who knows?)

I don’t know that I believe that you can fall in love with anyone. I do believe that there are certain people who you meet and think, wow, there’s a serious connection here. But mostly connections grow over time. Years down the line at some dinner party, someone will turn to you two and ask how you met, and out spills your love story.

are you a mastermind?

With Taylor Swift’s Mastermind, there are so many stories that have come out (mostly on TikTok) about women masterminding their way to their spouse. Some are cute, like texting them the same time of day so you get them thinking about you. Others are more methodical, like becoming friends with their siblings to slowly worm their way into his life. 

Maybe this is cheesy on my part, but I’d like to believe that you can’t manufacture a good love story. You can’t puzzle-piece your way into a beautiful ending.

On my laptop’s wallpaper, I have a photo of Ted and Tracy from HIMYM and it’s the moment that they officially meet. What makes HIMYM beautiful (despite the horrible ending and sweet friendships) is this. They haven’t manufactured anything. Yes, they each dated and tried to meet people and talked to their friends, but they also just lived their lives, open to the possibility that maybe someday they would meet someone new.

HIMYM (for all its flaws) shows us that the love story isn’t easy. 

There were a lot of tears and lonely nights and breakups before Ted and Tracy met, and though their banter is great, it isn’t an easy story to live through. None of it goes as planned. 

And that’s what makes it special.

We open ourselves up to potential love stories every time we meet someone new. And there’s a wildness to that kind of hope, trying to hold loosely what’s in front of you, knowing that it might not last, but maybe, just maybe it will.

Signing off, 

Gigi

What are your thoughts on love stories? What do you think is missing from them?