80s Comedies F***ed Up Your Concept of Love, and It’s Hurting Your Relationships

“Don’t love to be loved in return. Love for the sake of loving.”

― Connor Chalfant

Love Moves Our World

It makes us feel good; it gives a sense to our existence and makes life bearable.

It sparks something inside our brains that makes us feel instantly happy, like drugs, but it’s cheaper, so it’s more like sniffing glue.

And it’s also the most recurring theme in books, movies, series, poems, and music to the extent that it makes millions in benefits every year. If you want to earn money, you just have to write about unreal love and somebody will buy it.

But it’s also the least understood concept worldwide.

When we were growing up, we were used to 80s romantic comedy plots, where there was lots of drama, an unrealistic relationship, and a happy ending.

We identified ourselves with the protagonists because we wanted to live the same situations they lived. It seemed natural and not toxic at all — while, in fact, it was more toxic than Chernobyl.

We thought life should be an 80s romantic comedy.

The major problem with romantic comedies is that they are pure fiction. You can take them as seriously as a porn movie because they set unrealistic goals for everybody:

The boy had to chase the girl.

The girl had to play difficult to get, even if she was interested, and after a lot of chasing, the boy had a chance with her and not a restraining order.

Their friends had to always be there for the protagonists, no matter what hour or how stupid the problem was. Even when they called drunk and crying over some absurd situation at 3 a.m. And they rarely got slapped.

Any passer-by had to know the whole footloose choreography and stop doing more important things to look stupid in front of everybody.

You don’t love your partner; you hate being alone.

Do you really love your partner and your friends? Or maybe what you love is how they make you feel? Or what they can provide to you?

Love means to always wish the best for your people, no matter how it affects you. If your significant other dreams about moving to Iceland to become a famous ostrich trainer and you think he/she shouldn’t ask yourself this:

Am I worried because training ostriches in Iceland is an awful idea?

Should I learn to train ostriches?

Or am I worried because that means he/she will be away from me?

If your answer is the first one, you are loving right. If it is the second one, you are a true partner, but if it’s the third one, then we have a problem.

You don’t love your partner; you hate being alone. And probably ostriches as well.

Missing our people or being jealous is part of ourselves. It’s natural as long as it doesn’t reach worrying limits. You must never ignore certain boundaries, much like the way you wouldn’t ignore an escaping ostrich.

What Love Really Is

Love is an altruistic feeling that makes you wish the best for a person in any situation. It’s being always ready to help with no reward. And it’s like this, either for romantic love or friendships.

And yes, it is as irrational as it sounds; it is some adaptive social behavior of our ancestors, too long to explain here.

Only when you don’t care about what you can get, when you are ready to take a stab for someone, is when you can say that you truly love.

It Just Appears From Nowhere

Love and trust are scarcer than gold. That does not mean that you should keep always looking for them because you will most likely find nothing. You should instead search for gold. It keeps its value high during recessions.

Focus on improving yourself, grow as a person so, when the time comes, you will be a generous individual who will make life better for those around you. Training ostriches may also help.

In a Nutshell

Love is an awesome feeling in any of its kind, but must be done from selflessness. And please, do NOT base your expectations on Hollywood, because if you do, you will only find fiction.

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JM is a Spanish writer who endlessly talks about cars, philosophy, and revolution when he's not playing guitar or annoying his friends with bad jokes. You can follow him on Twitter to see more content: @jm_miana.