A recent letter from one of my readers was a potent reminder of what I was like when I was in my teens. I was a classic otaku; I was going through the stage where the only things I wanted to talk about were anime, manga and the fact that I wanted to find The One in the worst way. To paraphrase the ever relevant Days of Summer , I could blame this on an early exposure to sad British pop music and completely misunderstanding St.
And in fairness, my experiences at the time validated everything I was feeling. Love was everywhere. Every time I was into a girl, I was in love with her with my entire heart and soul. When we broke up and we always broke up⦠usually within a few months of getting together it was a hideous tragedy that would break my heart into pieces, set them on fire and then piss in the ashes, just for good measure.
Wellβ¦ you can kinda blame the French for this one. The Western concept of romantic love comes from the concepts of courtly love and chivalry 2 , where knights had elaborate and β critically β platonic relationships with the ladies of the court to which they served.
Troubadours took the idea β lovers restrained by circumstance and law, unrequited love and the purity of love vs. When your idea of what love is β and what to expect β is based on 80s New Wave albums and John Hughes movies, you end up with wildly unrealistic expectations, leading to a great deal of unhappiness for both you and your erstwhile romantic partner.
Puppy love is usually our first brush with romantic love, especially as tween or teenager. Imagine how it felt the first time you saw someone you were really into. Your heart starts to race. Your palms sweat but your mouth goes dry. Wanting to bang out can make you blind to a lot of flaws and fundamental incompatibilities because sometimes your genitals can yell a lot louder than your brain. We have a lot of cultural hang-ups built into our concept of love, and one of them is that sexual desire and love are somehow one and the same.
