Lovelyish

I think that I may be naiive and a bit too idealistic, but sex happens only when you’re in love. You need to have real feelings for them. I don’t give anything to a guy unless I really feel for him.

I don’t know about loving someone after knowing them for a day. For me, it can’t happen.

I completely agree with you on this. NOBODY FALLS IN LOVE IN A WEEK, not even a month, and not even six months. Love takes a long time to develop, and even longer to hold onto. The problem nowadays is that people see these idealistic portrayals of love and devotion in movies and TV shows, and they think that it’ll happen in real life. Then when it doesn’t, they automatically assume that it “wasn’t mean to be” and break off their relationship. Some people think that saying “I love you” somehow seals the deal, that it strengthens a partnership, but they’re dead wrong about that. Not only do people say it without meaning it, they say it way too soon. Honestly. It takes years to fully know and appreciate another person for who they are, and even then you still don’t know them completely. Nobody knows a person completely, no matter how much they want to. It’s a fact of life.

Oh yeah, you also can’t love somebody you’ve never met. Sorry, long-distance-internet-relationships (where you’ve never met the person) do not even count as a relationship at all. It’s a sad excuse to fill the gap of loneliness in someone’s life. Let’s get real here, people. PLEASE.

I’ve heard 50% of all marriages end in divorce, and 27% of first marriages do. I’ll double check and edit my comment if I find a source.
EDIT: Aha! I found what I was looking for. The fact is, the 50% divorce rate is misleading. Look at this statement from the NCHS:
“Duration
of marriage is linked to a woman’s age at first marriage; the older a
woman is at first marriage, the longer that marriage is likely to last.
For example, 59 percent of marriages to brides under 18 end in separation
or divorce within 15 years, compared with 36 percent of those married at
age 20 or over.”

As you can see, lots of things skew those numbers so though my first statement was off, the point remains.

But on the actual blog topic: I guess it doesn’t bother me, because I don’t base my own view of love nor my own love life on anyone else’s portrayal or opinion. I can watch a movie and say, “Wow, what a sweet story – but no one actually does that.” Meh. Just doesn’t seem worth getting upset about – the media “ruins” a lot of things.

Ehhh I don’t think it’s fair to blame the media. It’s only a reflection of what society WANTS to see anyway. Movies with whirlwind romances have existed since the creation of moving pictures, and before that, there were romance novels with equally unrealistic plots.

I don’t think its fair to blame the media society wants it that way, so therefore it will be that way. I fell in love in less than a day to my husband we’ve been married almost a year so its a matter of perspective in my opinion.

I don’t think the problem is that people don’t take love seriously enough. It’s rather the opposite, that people are so concerned with finding that one, true, perfect love, that they are too easily disappointed. If anything, the media has led us to believe that love is something wonderful and magical, while the real world shows us that nothing has that kind of power.

i don’t feel like love is automatically butterflies in your stomach, goosebumps all over your skin, your heart racing at 110 miles per hour. it’s a nice thought, but maybe it’s not completely realistic.

i agree with you, love is about feeling comfortable with someone. love is wanting to always impress someone, but knowing you don’t have to, because they’ll love you just the same. i feel like that’s way more important than passion.

media is all attitude

I’ll admit my notion of what love is a little fu*ked up from watching too many romantic dramas/comedies. LOL

@goodbye__dinah@xanga - I respect your opinion and all, but you shouldn’t insult other people’s relationships, even if they aren’t what you agree with. How do you know that their feelings are less genuine and real than anyone else’s?

I mean, I do agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but it just irked me that you went on to assume that people in those relationships have a “gap of loneliness” in their lives. They’re seeking the same thing everyone else is, just using technology to meet someone they normally never would due to location, etc. I think it was an irrelevant and unnecessary remark to add on there at the end. Unless you have a real reason to call other people’s relationships “a sad excuse to fill the gap of loneliness in someone’s life.”

Let’s get real, indeed. You say you can’t love somebody you’ve never met. Unless you have the experience/proof to back it up, I remain unconvinced by your statement.  :/

sell your tv ?

So, by reading this I’m going to take it you’ve never fallen truly, madly, deeply. Noted.

@whitetrashpoet@xanga - I agree with everything you said. I can’t even add to it because it was so perfect.

@goodbye__dinah@xanga - I have a friend who was dating a guy she met online for two years. When they fought, she cried. When he sent her a stuffed animal, she refused to live without it. When she was scared of storms and was on the phone with him, she felt comfort.

Long distance relationships can work. You don’ t always need a person to be physically there for you to be able to love them.

It still has meaning but if you keep listening to the media, you’ll lose sight of it. I’m sick of people placing the blame on something. Movies & TV dont tell you “have sex with the man you met the other day because you felt something on the train”. 

I admit when I first meet a guy I think is attractive, I may think about him often & think he’s handsome & get the butterflies in the stomach feeling but if that goes away after a few days or weeks, I know it was a momentary point of interest (I dont like to say infatuation, it sounds obsessive. LOL) & not love. If I get those feelings for months or years after, then I know it’s love. The media likes to tell stories & exaggerate. IS it fair to say that relationships that started quickly end fairly quickly? YES, but only a percentage. There are some people who fall in love & marry quickly & they’re still together years later. You cant always say someone’s feelings are meaningless or will change. Love isnt all magic, lighting & the right lines. It takes sacrifice, work & time but when you can do it without conditions or restraints, it’s wonderful.

P.S: I wish people would stop blaming Twilight for everything. It’s getting old & it’s not the only young adult story out there that’s caused “controversy”. It’s fiction, not stone cold facts & it’s annoying that people say it’s ruining girls minds because they will assume this is what love is. Does this mean there are vampires around in our high schools too?

@striemmy@xanga - Well said.

I have to agree with striemmy. It’s easy to criticize objectively. But try falling in love. A huge part of love is the passion. And you’ll get caught up in it too, and forget everything you just wrote here.

@Tanezia_Delight@xanga - You’re right about LDRs, you dont need to have someone there physically to love them. For that poster to say that, she doesnt know someone who has significant others in the military or in foreign countries working or going to school where they can/will be gone for months or years at a time. 

While the media always takes things too far, I feel like as a society we are too quick to blame the media.  There’s always the quickly forgotten fact that divorce was not allowed way back when, or it was at least severely frowned upon.  While I do agree that people tend to rush into things now, as someone mentioned in another comment, the stats are somewhat skewed.  It’s also more acceptable to get a divorce, and for women to take the first step toward that divorce.  A lot of people take an “I’m going to hurt you before you can hurt me” mentality, and it’s sad.  As a society, our morals and ideals are slipping a bit, but I don’t think love is any less prevalent or special.  At least, from my experience, it’s still around! 

Gah the media gets all of the blame now-a-days.

You’re thinking too modernly.  The idea of romantic love was largely perpetuated by the media (literature, back in those days), so it might as well be destroyed by the media.  Before the Romantic Era, you usually married because it was good for the prosperity of your family, not because you loved the person.  Pursing someone for romantic ends was uncommon and generally frowned upon.

when you put %, you don’t need to repeat percent right after it

@blackspiders@xanga - Oh believe me, I have the experience. I thought I was in love with a guy who lived in New York (I’m in Texas). We talked for seven or so months. We always talked about meeting each other, even about living together in some other state. He broke it off with me because he met someone in real life he actually wanted to pursue.

I’m not saying that all of them go to waste… but a VAST MAJORITY of them do. I’m just saying, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

@Tanezia_Delight@xanga - Congratulations for your friend, but like I said to her ^, I’m speaking in general. Some internet relationships do work, incidentally, but most do not. And wait, are you saying that for two years they didn’t see other people? They actually stayed true to each other? And have they met already?

if the person has been very deprived of love most of their life, then I think they are more likely to feel that they’ve fallen in love or get attached quickly, which some might interpret as lust and infatuation, but to that person, it is love. I think the Titantic movie was romantic, but Twilight, not so much.

a few bad experiences is hardly enough proof to back up how internet dating usually doesn’t work out. maybe I’m just the hopeless romantic and I’m biased because I like the You’ve Got Mail moviesome people can be married for 50 years or something, then later it doesn’t work out. if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, even if you’ve spent practically your lifetime with that person.

@goodbye__dinah@xanga - Sorry your LDR went to hell, doesn’t mean all do. Mine has gone fabulously for more than a year now because we’ve  only met many times but we put EFFORT into it. I”m glad neither my partner or I have the “don’t put your eggs in one basket” attitude, because frankly that wouldn’t work in any sort of relationship. My partner’s moving countries for it, sounds like yours was merely a douchebag who would’ve fallen in love with someone else whether you were there or not. If you are both on the same page about what you want, you”re willing to do just about whatever it takes, and you communicate well, yes, it can work. But don’t go around belittling everyone else’s relationship because yours was shit.

(Back to the post). Yeah, the media has altered how people view relationships, as usual. I’m sure how Rochester was to Jane Eyre back then was all well and good but now he’d be institutionalized, at best. And marriage? Seriously? When has marriage been more than an economic move, than a man deciding to own a woman? Times evolve, and I’m glad there is more freedom to love and marry however you wish, and end it if your partner has wronged you.

I just feel like i have an unrealistic idealistic idea of love which will screw me over on my epic life quest to find it. I legit blame Disney.

Oh please stop blaming the MEDIA, the reporters, the dreamweavers…  Blame it on the non-thinking drones who think that just cuz they saw it on TV it’s got to be real.

Go read up on what Joseph Campbell said about the concepts of love and marriage in MYTHOLOGY.

@methodElevated@xanga - Pursuing*

I’m talking to this girl named Julie, she’s been crushing on me since high school, but I enlisted in the Marine Corps. But when I went back home, I was miserable because I missed my old friends and my marines ya know? On my last night home, I bumped into her! And ever since then we’ve been talking..

I’m in Virginia now for training and I miss her a lot, I wouldn’t say that I love her, but I care for her a lot ya know? Yeah it looks like a movie from my point of view, but it’s good. It hasn’t ruined love, but it makes you think a little bit more or less..!

I never really let the media affect how my personal relationships were.  I knew that “love stories” like “You’ve Got Mail”, “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Titanic” were all just that…. STORIES.  I’m not really worried too much about what love is supposed to be, etc.  I just know what my love with my husband IS…. and that is based on the quote from the Bible in I Corinthians 13 – “love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy…. love does not boast.  It’s not proud.  Love does not easily anger.  It keeps no record of wrongs.  Love rejoices in the truth.  It always protects, always hopes, always perseveres”.  Etc.  I’ve missed a few in there (just reciting what I can from memory).  Of course, I’m not perfect.  I don’t meet all those qualifications (and neither does my husband) 100% of the time.  But it’s a good goal to strive towards as opposed to what the media offers, which is a shallow substitute for real love.

@boilingicicle@xanga - Exactly.  I don’t know a single person over the age of 17 who actually believes everything they see in a movie.

@whitetrashpoet@xanga - I’m not “upset” about it. It is merely something I have observed. I’m the same way as you, what I think love is has been based on my own opinion. I just see a lot of people who think of the media as their love guru. Example: people who dump their boyfriends because they don’t live up to Edward Cullen (The vampire from Twilight). It’s just something that bugs me is all.

@emwantsthin@xanga - Same here. Sex and love is actually en extremely important issue to me. That’s why I have chosen to remain a virgin (proudly) while I notice a lot of my friends give their V card away to boys they only have luke warm feelings for.

I THINK SOMEONE JUST GOT DUMPED! Go eat some ice cream and find someone to fuck and get over it. 

@SHARshopaholic@xanga - I’m not saying it is completely the media. I’m just saying they promote an unreal expectation. It’s also the people who believe that this “love” is real. But hey, maybe it is, but I don’t think so. I don’t think you can love someone in that short a period of time.

@chipshmunk@xanga - I actually did not just get dumped thank you very much. But thank you for your support.

@boilingicicle@xanga - I’m not blaming the media. I am simple saying they promote an unreal expectation. It’s not up to them if an individual believes it or not.

@BrookeFehr@xanga - So don’t be so bitter. You’ll find the person that gives you the butterflies and will stay around long enough for you to realize you are in love and the movies just exaggerate stuff..because that is the point of a movie. People write the stories because it is what people want to see.. and it is what people have been telling stories about and dreaming about since.. well forever. Fireworks aren’t literally going to burst and the Hall and Oats song “You Make My Dreams Come True” isn’t going to start playing while the people around you start dancing. But inside you’ll feel like that should happen. 

@BrookeFehr@xanga - However… if you just read or watched Twilight.. and you’re the person that decided to put a picture of Twilight up.. yeah I totally agree. 

@rainbowbrite2200@xanga - fair enough, if that’s all it took for you to fall in lvoe who am I to judge? I am just stating my opinion on the subject.Not everyone lets the media effect their lives, but this is just my opinion on the ones who do, and how it can ruin your life if you let hollywood take control of your expectations.

@soulfuric - That’s exactly the message I am trying to get across, that people let the medias defiition of love control their own love life.

@Konrado@xanga - Haha, I would do that if my own definition of love was effected by the media. I however choose to base my own love on what I know and what I have felt before. Not on Titanic.

@striemmy@xanga - Yes I actually have fallen in love. My definition of love. Mad passionate love.

@Shinbi_Belldandy@xanga - I’m not saying that some people can’t fall in love quickly and have their happily ever after. This blog is completely written in what love is to me If other people can fall that way and make it work, I am more than happy for them. I’ve just never seen that example work out for anyone I know. I’m not blaming only Twilight by the way. I have read the books and I like them and the movies. I’m not saying they ruin youths minds, I’m just saying it has a strong influence in todays youth. I’m not trying to say that these movies/book should never have been made and are a complete abomination, I’m just saying that they have an influence on some peoples opinions is all.

@smoking_snakes@xanga - I have fallen in love. And yes, passion was a strong part of it, but eventually passion leads to something greater. Sometimes that “heat” fades and people become disappointed with what is left, a strong relationship that is just constant.

@chipshmunk@xanga - I’m not trying to be bitter, I am merely stating my opinion on something. I acutally have found someone who made me realize I was in love, but I didn’t get “butterflies”. I felt something different than what is shown in movies. I didn’t feel I needed fireworks, or for music to start playing. That person alone was simply enough, it was everything I needed.

I didn’t choose to put a picture of Twilight up, lovelyish actually did that on their own. They did re-edit my post before they posted it. I had no picture next to this when I put it up.

@BrookeFehr@xanga - So, to reiterate, you believe in individualized conceptualizations and definitions of love yet dare to withdraw validity from what may be the definition (from experience, not media) of love for many other people out there? Crystal clear. 

@striemmy@xanga - I believe individuals ideas of love can vary, but all are generalized on the same idea. I think the media has started to make that general idea of love become a little bit more dramatic.

@BrookeFehr@xanga - Then I think that you fail to grasp the complexity of the love lives of others. Art imitates life.

So, you’ve been in love just once?

@DancerDarlin@xanga - I feel the same way. I’m not saying the media is compeltely to blame here but I am saying that have sped up the process if you will. I also don’t believe in divorce myself. I feel if you are ready to make that much of a commitment to someone, you should stick to it. I understand if you have violence or certain issues, but I hate to see how many people get married when they are drunk in Vegas and such.

@methodElevated@xanga - I can respect that opinion. I do thank to media for helping in showing that you can marry for love and such, but I think it would have been best if the definition of “love” had not been tarnished in the past years.

@x__BeautiifulxDiisaster__x@xanga - My mistake. I apologize.

@P0RCELA1N_D0LL@xanga - That’s completely understandable. I understand if it doesn’t work out and such, that happened with my parents after nearly ten years together.

@MoonFaeEyryan@xanga - I guess marriage means something different to you than me I guess. To me it is a show of love to another person. A show of dedication. Not merely a way to “own a woman”

@fuzzi_mushroom@xanga - Disney does do that to some of their movies,

@striemmy@xanga - That’s your opinion then I guess.

Yes, once. I’m sixteen. It’s not like I’ve been dating for a decade.

@BrookeFehr@xanga - The bit about complexity or art? In this context neither is an opinion and both are conclusions drawn from experience.

Oh? So, why would you suppose you’d be in a position to adequately philosophize on an issue you know so little about?

@MoonFaeEyryan@xanga - My apologies. I was just sayin’. My outlook on love isn’t the best nowadays… hopefully if it ever happens for me again I’ll change my mind. It’s very difficult for me to trust somebody completely, because every time I do it falls apart. I’m glad it’s worked for other people, but I’m still skeptical about that sort of thing. (Internet dating, I mean.)

@striemmy@xanga - I did not say I can “adequately philosophize on an issue I know so little about” I merely stated my opinion and left it for others to read. If you have a different opinion good for you, go ahead and ignore mine. It’s not like I came into this blog blind though. I have been in love, and I know what love feels like to me. Therefore I do have experiece on this issue. My age does not control my knowledge. Yes, it does control my expierence, but I can still have an opinion on something no matter what my age is. If you don’t like my opinion, stop replying to my comments judging me.

@BrookeFehr@xanga - The problem here is that when stating things as opinion, one would generally indicate this by adding an “I think” or “It is my belief that” somewhere in there to let everyone know they aren’t trying to state a fact. For example “This is all untrue” would probably better be stated as “I don’t find any of this to be true” so as to avoid you being rebuked by people that know better or misleading people that don’t.

You’ve been in love once. You’ve been in love with one person and experienced the way it felt in that one instance, in that one situation, with that one person with you being the way you were at that point in your life. You might as well be going into it blind. So long as those are the facts your age is fairly irrelevant. In fact, I hadn’t mentioned it once. You brought it up twice though. I don’t care about your opinion, whether backed up with experience or not. What I do care about is people who don’t know any better putting junk on the net that other people, who also don’t know any better, might believe. Please be more mindful about the potential implications of your “opinion” when improperly expressed.

@striemmy@xanga - obviously by the fact that I wrote this, it is my opinion. I would not post something I didn’t believe in. Therefore I find it unecessary to put “it is my belief that”. If I didn’t believe it, would I really write it down?

Some people only fall in love once in their life? Is that to say they do not understand what love is? What if I never fall in love again, is that to say that my opinion if false because I have only loved one person? It should not matter how many people you fall in love with. I have been in love period. I know what love is to me, I know what to expect. I’m not going to meet someone and all of a sudden change my entire outlook on love. I mentioned my age because you were bashing that I have only been in love once, therefore my opinion has less meaning. When you said I did not have the position to talk about this subject, I thought that was a comment about my age, my mistake. If you do not care about my opinion, then leave it alone. I believe my opinion is 100% properly expressed. It is my opinion after all, not yours. And if you would like to further insult me, please refrain.

i totally agree. ppl cant possibly know each other after only a few months. sometimes u still dont know everything about them after a few years. and u dont know if youre even compatible with them in such a short amount of time. youre still in the honeymoon stage and dont see how they actually are til thats over, and that should take MONTHS. i hate how movies now have ppl falling in love in a week. it makes you think that if you arent in love with someone within a week of dating,they arent marriage material or ‘the one.’ its completely unrealistic and ruins a lot of relationships im sure. i mean, it makes for a good sappy story, but theyre ALL doing it and blowing ‘love’ outta proportion and its just gotten outta hand.

@BrookeFehr@xanga - 

Title: “The Media Has Ruined Love!“

Main idea: “The media has completely destroyed what love used to be.”

I’m sorry I misunderstood. Judging by the statements that I just copy/pasted, no you were not blaming the media at all.

@boilingicicle@xanga - I’m sorry my opinion was not clearly stated. I do not think it was only the media, I just tihnk they promote an unhealthy definition. I’m sorry if that was not stated. I can understand how you might be confused by my post and my comment.

@BrookeFehr@xanga - On the contrary, you writing a blog has no meaning that you, or another person, doesn’t apply to it. You are perfectly capable of writing a blog that is absolutely the opposite of what you believe as well as writing a blog that has nothing to do with your beliefs and is strictly about the facts. Does that answer your questions?

For people that only fall in love once in their lives I would say that they have an incomplete understanding of what love can be for them and a limited understanding of what it has been. I’m actually trying to refrain from insulting you, as it’s not my intention (and if it was, you’d most certainly know it by now) but you’re not making it easy. Perhaps it should not matter how many people you fall in love with. However, what should be does not impact the reality of the fact that being in love with different people, at different times in life, when you’re a different person and/or in different circumstances provides a person with different experiences and has an impact on that person and what they think about love, life and other human beings, as well as what they think about their past relationships.

I won’t argue with you about your live life because you don’t, and may never, know any better. However, understand the way you look, as a teenager vehemently defending a position while having already agreed that you have limited experience. Saying you won’t meet someone and all of a sudden change your outlook on love does not mean that that is how things will come to pass. If those sort of predictions made during adolescence all came true, there would be a lot less adults walking the earth. The whole of your and my and every other persons’ lives are evaluated subjectively. I’d hope you don’t honestly think that a new experience wouldn’t impact you or wouldn’t have the ability to profoundly alter you, despite what you’ve said.

Perhaps you’d like me to insult you as an exercise in subjectivity. To be honest, it’s sort of insulting to have what I’ve said so far be placed on the level of an insult, at least for me.

@BrookeFehr@xanga - ”I believe my opinion is 100% properly expressed.”

“I’m sorry my opinion was not clearly stated.”

Look at that. 16 minute gap.

@striemmy@xanga - my opinion that the media has effected some peoples definition of love is 100% expressed, my opinion that it is also the people who believe fairy tales is not. That is what I meant by those to comments.

@BrookeFehr@xanga - Well I’m not confused. You made some good points there (infatuation vs love), but then you’re missing out on a LOT of details too.

So go read up on the role of Love and Marriage in Mythology.
Also, read up on Psychology. And the language of Dreams.

Those are the stuff of fantasy – the stuff of stories and movies.

Unless you get that, stop blaming the media, or the stories, for crazy marriage/relationship statistics.

Oh and it is possible to fall in love at first sight and quickly build a relationship with passion, and have it work long-term. It depends on both parties’ maturity. 

@BrookeFehr@xanga - You missed the two potential points of that comment. Either 1) you changed your mind or 2) you were/ are still improperly expressing yourself if that apparent contradiction required clarification to make sense. =)

It’s not that media has ruined it, but women were stupid enough to eat that shit up and make it POPULAR and widespread.

- Kunoichi

cynical reductionist. oh dear.

i don’t think the media is who you should blame for this but i do agree the media is bad bad influence.

also if you want something that’s full on unbelivable, look at romeo and juliet, they fall in love in abit more than three pages

LOVE as defined by culture is unsustainable… it is an emotion that fades and to expect a relationship to be based on a emotion is sad because nothing can sustain an emotion indefinitely, the laws of physics say so (diminishing margin of utility) which say it will take more and more effort to sustain something… eventually it will not be possible. That is why a relationship must be based on something higher and more solid, the emotion of love should be treat not a necessary thing.

……The Problem starts when you “are looking”, you search for someone who will uphold the juices of love, and not just be there for you. I have been searching for someone who will help me search out truth, but alas ladies are not looking to help, but only rather to be helped.

@goodbye__dinah@xanga - For two years, they didn’t see anyone. This irritated a few guys at my school because since she was new to school, a LOT of guys wanted to go out with her. But she always politely declined. And they met after two years; this year, they will have their four year anniversary.

 
And in general, all relationships need that work. People who say that meeting people online won’t work say that because they’re too wrapped up in physically having someone there to love. You can’t just say that in general, computer relationships fail because think of how many “normal” relationships don’t work out. Those fail all the time. Right now, a couple is breaking up for whatever reason. It’s not like everyone marries the first person they go out with.
 
All relationships take work in order to make it, and those who are willing to do the work will have a good relationship. And the same is with computer met relationships. If both parties are serious about it, it will work. And it’s the same as “normal” relationships. There really isn’t a difference except you don’t have the person physically there. You can still love someone even if they’re not physically there.

@goodbye__dinah@xanga - Well said.

um, i guess some people may think deeper into movies about love and think that their life is supposed to be like that but I don’t. 

I think everyone has different experiences with love.
It’s all perception.

Everyone assumes because a relationship didn’t last, they didn’t love each other.
There is a lot more to a successful relationship than love, although love is the most important part to me.

Also, why does everyone give other people a time frame for loving someone?
First of all, it’s not your place to judge how long it takes to love someone.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost six months. Not a very long time, but I still love him. Very much, and if anyone tries to tell me I don’t and it’s “just lust” can go fuck themselves.

Anyway, back to the actual topic.
The media is blamed for a lot these days, but it’s not actually the media’s fault at all.
It’s our society allowing the media to have such a hold on us.

People should learn the difference between fantasy and reality.
Romance movies, in my opinion, should stay the way they are.
It’s fun to escape into a world of crazy love and passion, and cute things for a little while.
A movie that depicted a realistic relationship would boring, and I probably wouldn’t watch it.

No one wants to watch two people taking it slow and getting along.
It just doesn’t make interesting TV.

Before movies, books ruined love.  

its getting harder&harder to ‘love’ in today’s society.
its like ppl dun get the meaning of love anymore.
what is love? why do we need love?
u said that media has ruined love
but even wifout the media, not alot of ppl understand what is love
does it “have” to be something u experience in ur lifetime?
meeting someone, getting to know them, dating, marriage, kids, death…
sounds simple& so um…perfect?
but life is never like that; honestly.
that might be a sterotypical life but i doubt that’s what love really is.
the media is making what ppl wanna see, the unsterotypical love story thats different.
or at least my opinion.

I completely agree! Although there is some love like the movies, it’s just really rare

@emwantsthin@xanga - That may not always be true. There are girls out there who have sex with men for money.

I understand about the passion thing. Love isn’t always going to be gaga-head-over-heels passionate and fiery. Sometimes its more about comfort and stability.

Though in movies, they really aren’t going to draw it out. It’s much easier and less time consuming to have them fall in love right away. Showing the long process would bore watchers and waste time they could be using to advance other parts of the story.

You should watch Thumbelina, its terrible. They meet each other and 5 minutes later start singing about how they are each other’s “only love”  its hilarious.

Love isn’t something that can be categorized. It’s as unique as a finger print. You can’t lump love into one category, or description. Just like everyone has their own specific finger print each person has their own definition or understanding of love. Can someone fall in love in less than a day? Sure. But does that mean that everyone has that ability? Most definitely not. I feel that we may have similar definitions or similar love abilities. Love is a tricky little devil, and to some it may mean nothing more than security. But to some it may mean everything. Just like life, love is whatever someone wants to make it.

That’s what I think anyways. I feel the media overplays just one definition of love leaving no room for any other love scenarios.

I completely agree with this. I have always been so confused as to why people in movies “fall in love” after knowing each other for 3 days. I remember liking a guy (whom I never had the balls to talk to) for THREE YEARS of my life (btw not because he was HOT, he was actually a nerdy kid who talked wayyy too much and to be honest I’m not sure why I liked him…), and I never considered it “love”, I was simply infatuated and I knew it. It takes a lot to fall in love with a person, perhaps even effort.

Another bash on twilight.

Or not.

i don’t think the media has ruined love, but i do think that it has set expectations much higher. in movies, things always end perfectly, but in real life, this rarely happens. also, i think they have set womens’ idea for “the perfect propose” incredibly high. although we would all like a big fancy proposal, sometimes there just isn’t enough money for one, especially after already buying a ring.

I agree 100 % im tired of people i know saying they are in love after knowing a person for 2 weeks (yes i kno someone who said this) its ridiculous you dont even know the person! I remember I am so strict with this that at the beginning of my relationship with my bf who I can honestly say i love I told him that I wasnt in love with him that i cared for him and I liked him a lot but it was love. Eventualy i came to realize that im in love with him (we’ve together for more than a year) and he pisses me off on a daily bases but i accept him for who he is so i dont care about those little things. ANyway thats why I hate twilight and movies similar to it they portray that love at first site crap. My bfs best friend caused a load of drama in our life because she believed she was “in love” with him and she doesnt even know him anywhere near as much as I do. ITs unbelievable how they toss the word love around like nothing I hate that.

YES THANKYOU

Love takes time and effort and people get it confused with passion. There’s a difference. Love should also come with other things like stability, compatibility, etc etc 

I believe media presents love in this way because it gives hope to the loveless, that something can change in the spur of the moment. Have you ever thought that the people in the media were spurned by many lovers and in fact need this heartfelt story that shows love can happen anywhere and in anytime?
I agree about how they pervert love in movies where in some cases couples are married but are nonchalant about it and are cheating or looking forward to divorce. It’s terrible, marriage should be more sacred between lovers, of any orientation.

I agree. But I am also guilty of watching too many chick flicks.  So it’s screwed over my perspective somewhat but I think deep down we all know love isn’t really like that..

We just wish it was…I find myself sometimes, watching A Walk to Remember, The Notebook or some other romantic movie with my girlfriends, awwwwing…and saying  “I wish he’d do that.” Even though we know it’d never happen.

I think partly, from these movies and the stress the media puts on love, we expect more…and we try to find that one “perfect” person, but we’re disappointed..time…after time…after time…

I’ve been with my boyfriend for about 2 years. I know he’s not perfect, and I don’t expect him to be an Edward Cullen. He does get on my nerves sometimes, but I still love him, flaws and all.

Love isn’t just one big thing…it’s a million little things.

I agree that some people don’t take love seriuosly enough; I think you’re right saying that intimacy (and I”ll even through in ‘lust’) are commonly mistaken for love. But I don’t think that love is just security either. There has to be passion and intimacy there…it’s part of true love. Granted, honeymoon stages don’t last forever and it’s great to marry/build a future with someone that you can love and trust without all the butterflies. I think the media has warped love a bit, but not completely to where some people still don’t understand its true meaning.

People just need to be smart enough to know that movies are movies and nothing more.  It’s not like we expect to discover Pandora once we walk out of the movie theatre.

I agree that love is portrayed unrealistically in movies. 

From the time I first starting watching Disney princesses fall in love in a day, the media has continually taught me to accept nothing less than love at first sight and finding my one perfect soul mate!   When this idea is consistently pushed, I can start to grasp onto it and feel disappointed if things don’t happen just that way.  The movies present the idea that love should always be thrilling and passionate – never ordinary. And if it is, we should probably go our own way and find someone new.  We get the idea that love will always be a fluttery feeling, rather than a decision, a choice to be strong and to stay by that person’s side.

But honestly…you have to step back and remember that movies are fantasy and they are meant to be an escape.  I definitely love watching romantic movies!  They’re fun!  But I can’t (and don’t) base my real-life expectations on them.  I would probably end up alone if I looked at the world like a Disney movie. 

gravity makes things fall towards the center of the earth.

OH, im sorry, i thought we were having a who can make the most fucking obvious statement ever contest

Wow, this is a very good post.  You are right because the media has ruin love. It portrays it as a happy love muck fest.  All my friends are dying for boyfriends and I’m not, because I’ve seen the work that you have to put into it…Its not that its not great but people think when your in love that thats all it takes…it kind of disgusts me…

I do agree that the media has painted a very false portrait of love for people. But, you have to admitt it, we love it. Titanic won ample amounts of awards, Twilight became a best seller around the world. People love stories of spur of the moment love. Possibly because they have hopes of finding that themselves? I do not at all think that someone can find the person they want to be with forever and fall in love with them inside of a week. But the feeling of love, or infatuation, makes people happy. Let them be happy. Love grows and changes, movies aren’t long enough to show all of that, it’s too complex. I’m sure only a handful of us know what it’s even like, myelf not included. I have had strong feelings for people, but after it’s all said and done, I don’t know what is love and what isn’t. If someone is happy because they think they’ve found love, there is no need to pass judgement, love is different for everyone.

the media don’t dictate what love is. media’s portrayal of love is FICTIONAL.

i agree, i like your post a lot! it’s helped me a lot in figuring out my feelings actually. thanks so much for writing this

it’s true we’ve been influenced to have that perfect, that single ideal one… it’s wrong and will have people sitting in a lot of disappointment and heartache. we have to become the right person first, not just look for that one perfect person because he/she doesn’t exist! relationships and love with always need work, from both sides.

@whitetrashpoet@xanga - your statistics suck. The one reason my mom is leaving my dad is because he was rotten and didnt treat her right. there was love she said the best part of the marriage was me and my brother and when she raised us she stayed with my dad so we could be normal kids and have a family. so she fought to death for us. 50% do not end in divorce. people divorce because of “irrieconsiable differences” im so sick of statistics they mean nothing. and every girl who believes in premartial sex uses them as a backpack. I think people need to really open their eyes. Love is everything with Jesus and you have love in all areas. the Media just tries to rape your mind saying “your not doing it right do this way” (except Disney there is love EVERYWHERE)

@emwantsthin@xanga - not nesscarily. I know people who have had one night stands because they felt that “connection” sex takes years and love takes Aeons. There i just said your comment better

ya know all you weridos need to think beyond your relationships. LOVE is more than DATING and SEX. its about careing about your sister your not even related to. Its about careing about your best friends its about showing how much you care for about a person. Silly presents in the mail that happen out of nowhere suprised vists when you live 5,000 miles away. Thats love ladies and gentlemen Disney has that love. Everything else in the media is squed. now the media isnt wrong, it just could be potrayed better. Like Harry Potter

@SocialCliquereject@xanga - I’m not maning to bash Twilight. Lovely posted the photo and made Twilight the prime example.

@explosive@xanga - AMEN i love you for your comment. Not that the media is bad. Movies books and Music are Fake unless its non fiction and someone is a teloing a story with a song ya knwo the unplugged series

@TheMilkyWayAndStars@xanga - i love your michael scott picture. everyone thinks i am him in real life just remember LOVE is more than relationships. Just look at Disney love love is sending packages when you dont expect them showing up at friends house when you live 5,000 miles away. love is caring about someone who you are not related to you. Love is more than dating

@SacredWriter@xanga - PS harry potter is better than twilight

@BrookeFehr@xanga - hey first off, Love is more than relationships. Its about careing about someone more than you can imagine. If about sending packages out of the blue to someone you care about. Its about flying 16,000 miles to see one. Love is more than dating. The media just says “hey your doing this wrong” Except for harry potter and Disney if that isnt love than i dont know what is. Its beyond sex and dating. 

@SocialCliquereject@xanga - hahah The second twilight movie sucked the book was WAY better. the 4th book was horrendous Harry potter long live! Twilight book 1 and 2 where good 3 was ok 4 i literally threw out the window and gave it to my friend. Its dreck wrting from a 4th grader but i love jacob

@Jeremy_Sheer@xanga - The movie did suck. The wolf transformation was the only exciting part. Even though they were suppose to be werewolves n_N. I really liked the books, but now when I look back. they were all crappy, except the first one.

Long live HP!!

6th movie/book fighting/dueling scene was disappointing, we want ACTION!

@SocialCliquereject@xanga - hey HBP was WAY better than Twilight someone had to give me cookies to finish the 4th book. The only problem i have with this blog. Is they should have GINNy and Harry Kissing rather than Bella and Edward. Deathly hallows will rock I promise your pretty cool

@Jeremy_Sheer@xanga - Not was, IS. Nah, this blog was a bash on media love. Ginny and Harry never claimed to be in love. They do eventually because he marries her in the end (getting carried away with fantasy n_N). I wish they left intimate relationship out of HP. I like it way better without.
I saw the trailer for Deathly Hollows, it was disappointing. And it’s being made into TWO MOVIES. That means we have to wait until the summer of 2011 to see the final,final movie =/

You’re pretty cool yourself

The media’s portrayal of love is definitely strange but it’s hollywood! It’s what makes a good story. I do NOT agree that this is the reason people end in divorce though. People these days are a lot more unhealthy and unstable in the mind. They cannot make a relationship work because they don’t know how to be a complete human being all my themselves first. This has more so to do with the way children are being raised and what is accepted in society today.

thats soo true. i try not to let the media affect my thot on love i think more of God’s love. and the Bible.

The movies are only like two hours long…what would you rather them do? Now if it were a sitcom doing that, or a mini-series okay but I liked those movies renditions of love, it wasn’t completely focus on the physical attraction for once. could’ve been worse if you ask me

Yeah, it took me like two and a half years to realize I was in love with someone.  We never have dated, but he’s my good friend, and it took me that long to realize that I was in love with him, and then a few weeks to admit it to myself.

I’m always irked by the fact that in movies, the protagonist meets his/her love interest, and in only a few short days, if that, they end up “in love.” This is bullshit. Especially in those instances where the two are horrendesly mismatched and hate each of on sight. This also applies to actors who have no onscreen chemestry, yet their characters are forced into romance where none would otherwise exist. I cite Twilight as a chief example.

Love isn’t something that just happens. It has to be cultivated over months or even years. For those who end up in bed three days after meeting, such a relationship will never last. Shallow romance yields a short, empty relationship, and always ends messily.

@Tanezia_Delight@xanga - Wow, that’s a hell of a story. I guess my main concern with it is that some people aren’t the same on the internet as they are in real life. Some people develop this completely different persona to show to others, and then when you meet them they’re basically someone else. Not everyone does this, but I think a lot of people do it without realizing it. Maybe I’m just bitter, I dunno.

I didnt like the fact that my previous gf wanted me to ask her out sooner than give it enough time to truly know eachother, in fact plenty of girls that i’ve met gave me that treatment. I rather love the person who they are rather than just check them out and be like “hmm she’s hot and seems cool” and later on regret it. Either way I miss how love used to be and what really meant and mattered now its like a must get in a relationship within a short period of time which makes me sick. Half the time I hear ranting about “oh im in love while I just met and slept with so and so” in a matter of one day or a lousy week then a week later they break it off. I never hear anyone come up with a story similar to mind for me to accept they are actually in fact in LOVE. I only hear so and so is nice or just feel something good about them if really I never hear that “i’ve met whats her face for a month now and cant help that being with that person gives you that timeless feeling” which instead if someone heard them say that they would say “dude thats creepy” pretty fucked up I tell you (excuse my language) I guess those who fall into what the media shows rather hear “I met this girl for one day and date her cuz she’s good in bed” alright lets have our fucking thumbs up woo fucking whoo.

I married my husband three months after meeting him.  We had no whirlwind romance of dating, flowers, etc.  We both knew we wanted to get married shortly after meeting, we just knew.  I don’t doubt that he loved me then or now.  While the media might over dramatize some aspects of love, they do that with all parts of life, that’s why it’s entertaining.  Although you may be able to put a definitely on the physical cause of love, it is still something different to everyone who experiences it.  Who can say what exactly it is that attracts one person to another in that way?  Each person has some slightly different requirements that allow them to feel attached to someone else.

Personally, the OP does not come out of this piece sounds like they are very much into love in general, regardless of the media’s portrayal of it.  They sound kind of bitter actually.

i agree. media often gives an unrealistic image of life. “and often women has too much expactation on love that they face problems in relationships” <- from the book “why men want sex and women need love”

I think it has more to do with thoughtlessness and the much, much, much more lax divorce laws than there used to be. People used to have to take a lot of things into consideration before getting married, because the reality was that it wasn’t likely they’d be able to get out of it very easily. Grounds for divorce didn’t used to be someone citing “irreconcilable differences” and leaving it at that. And even before those laws came into place, way back when, you had to get permission from the Pope for an annulment. I don’t think the word “divorce” was used very often then, if at all.

Now, all you have to do is get into a fight with your husband or wife and decide you’re just so offended you really don’t FEEL like working it out with them, and you give up. So, its always in the back of people’s minds, even if only subconsciously, “I don’t have to stay in it for the long haul if I don’t really want to.”

That doesn’t mean everyone who gets married is going to get divorced. Just because that might be in the back of someone’s mind, subconsciously or not, that doesn’t mean someone is going to utilize that fact.

Still, that’s really what I attribute it to, rather than the media. The movies and television and things like that are fake. They’re meant to be fake. They’re meant to entertain. They’re meant to give us a taste of something that is not real, but is rooted in some form of reality somewhere, and that we all wish was real.

If anyone takes the movies and such so seriously…well, let’s just say, I can’t imagine why a sane, rational human being would do that. :p Wishful thinking is one thing, blatant gullibility is quite another.

I agree, they’ve put a fine line between infatuation and love.

duh, its for entertainment purposes. Nobody wants to watch a 4 hour movie about a couple who meets then falls in love over a span of 2 years. We want entertainment, comedy, romance, drama… stress on drama.

A couple years ago, the media’s portrayal of love was all what I really had to what “love” and a relationship was going to be. So when I first started dating, that’s what I was expecting and you can imagine how disappointed/shocked/confused I was. While it’s nice to have a positive image of love, it needs to be realistic too!

AMEN!

@BrookeFehr@xanga - I didnt mean the mini Twilight rant towards you specifically. =D I just saw the pic Lovelyish added & got annoyed. The past year or so has people bashing Twilight acting like it’s gonna corrupt young girls & turn them into oppressed romantics or something. If people followed everything they read, not many of us would be around, right? It’s not like Harry Potter inspired people to fly on brooms & do spells, nor did nursery rhymes have people falling off walls or hills.

I think everyone has their great love out there somewhere, so dont give up on it! I’m still looking too. NOT waiting, if you wait for anything in life, it’ll pass you by. 

@Shinbi_Belldandy@xanga - I totally agree. I mean, I can see that some young girl are effected by Twilight, but it’s not like it’s changing the entire generation. So many people blame it for everything going wrong nowadays.

I agree that the media has made peoples expectations of love a bit to high but I wouldn’t say it has ruined it.

It’s not like back in the day love was this perfect thing and every marrige worked out. You met a guy, married him, had kids, he went to work, you stayed home cooking and cleaning. If your marrige failed, he cheated, beat you, was a dead beat, you hated each other, maybe he was gay, you made it work becuase divorce was not as widely excepted and women weren’t as independent.

Love is not simple on so many levels.

@Jeremy_Sheer@xanga - everything is better than twilight

I get what you mean. On one hand, it’s nice to just sit back and let the silver screen entertain us. On the other hand, I know that things in real life isn’t as easy and idealistic as portrayed in media. That’s why it’s called entertainment… something different from the real world where we can escape to. But unfortunately, the media has subtle ways of influencing our expectations in the real world if we don’t consciously filter what we watch/hear/read.

That “being on the same page” comment is right on! First of all, two people have to be attracted to each other, like each other and be friends before the beginning of love starts to develop. One definition of love that I’ve always liked is “the fulfilling of each other’s needs.” That can happen in a LDR up to the point where it is no longer enough. If and when the couple marries, each will change and grow and if they are on the same page, fulfilling each other’s needs, they will change and grow in the same direction, with each other and for each other. This is where teen marriages fail so often. The deepest, longest-lasting relationships will always include mutual values, expectations, respect and lots of communication. Sure, sex/intimacy is a big part of it but more like icing on the cake and the filling between the layers. If everything else isn’t in place, it goes to hell in a handbasket, in a hurry. It’s more important to some than others and that’s okay as long as it’s mutual.

As a side note, there was a time ‘way back in history when marriages didn’t take place in a church because the priest didn’t want “the house of God” corrupted by lust. With the right connections, the couple would be lucky to receive the priest’s blessing from the church steps, or so it was explained on a genealogy mailing list I used to subscribe to. 

Yes, I believe that the unrealistic portrayals of love in media (and literature as well) don’t give people a good foundation or skillset for making love work for a lifetime.

But “In reality it’s merely a certain amount of chemicals in the brain that cause you to feel lust, security and trust” Yowsers… if the media has ruined love, you’re using science to ruin it.

What love will be left when the initial chemical reactions wear off? What the couple does next determines whether the disillusionment that the honeymoon phase didn’t last forever will break the relationship or allow a deeper kind of love to grow.

I think this post is stupid. Sorry, I just do. And what evidence do you have that represents love in simplistic standards in the past? Read some literature, like Chopin or Shakespeare, why don’t you?

@goodbye__dinah@xanga - I have been in a relationship for 2 years now.  We love each other very much.  We have disagreements, we have happy times, we argue and we make up.  We said “I love you” and meant it after only a couple of months together.  We’ve been living together for over a year and a half.  I don’t know him perfectly, but I’m sure I have a decent idea of who he is and what he is like. 

You can know you love someone very early on, but it’s the time together that solidifies the relationship and that tests love.  Love isn’t something that just happens, it’s something you continue to cultivate and it can fail and die.  We have been working on ours and that’s why our relationship works.

I agree that the media does overdramatize love, but this is not new either.  Romeo and Juliet fall in love within 2 days.  Yes 48 hours, if you read carefully.  Shakespeare is not new and this view of romanticized love isn’t either.  It’s what people take away from it.

I don’t think it’s the media that makes people irresponsible in relationships, I think it’s the throwaway culture.  People seem to think that they can always get the newer, better thing.  You can buy a better tv every year, a better computer every six months, a new car every new model, and a new spouce whenever you’re tired of the old one.  People may be in love but they don’t want to work to keep it.

As for Avatar, 3 months of time to train him is enough time to get to know each other.  Remember he spent almost all his waking time with her.  While 3 months isn’t enough time to solidify a relationship, it is enough time to realize whether you care about and want to grow with someone.  Once both parties make a conscious decision that they want to be together and will work through anything together, then it can work.  It’s a choice we make.

@KJLavender@xanga - it’s not just the beggining that is a chemical reaction actually. I studied this in psychology, love in its entirety is just chemicals in your brain. Even you love for a child. Thats why some mothers can give up their new born babies without a second though, they are lacking the right amount of chemicals in their brain.

@grrsjijb@xanga - That’s your opinion. And I have read Shakespear. I’ve read three of his plays, and seen two.

interesting post…

while i don’t think the media itself is completely responsible for the increased divorce rate and people’s unrealistic expectiations, i do think it plays a really large role.

and i think your definition of love’s a good one : )

yes i agree with your blog, but then my law professor married his wife after 8 months of getting to know her. He said he knew what he wanted and found it. They have been happily married for 30 something years. I guess there are always those exceptions.

@grrsjijb@xanga - also, is Shakespeare not fictional? You kind of just helped me prove my point.

@annnyah@xanga - Thanks

@BrookeFehr@xanga - Well, if people become disappointed, that’s their own fault for thinking things in movies are true. That doesn’t mean that it’s the media’s fault for conveying exaggerated ideas of love. Gullible people ruin their OWN love. The media does not ruin love for everyone because most people understand that the movies aren’t necessarily true portrayals of life.

I beg to differ in Avatar’s case, if you remember, Jake Sully was given 3 months to become one of the them….sooo that love is totally possible. 

I don’t think they’ve ruined love.  That’s just one definition of love and the most appealing/entertaining so of course the media is going to play up on it.  I think people definitely have fallen in love that way.  It may be rare, but we are intelligent human beings…anything is possible.

I agree with you for the most part.   People see marriage and love as a life full of butterflies and candy canes.  That is good to an extent, it’s nice to have someone to be passionate or sweet with.  But it is also a partnership and friendship, which many forget.  People seem to have the idea that if you’re not madly in love every single moment of the relationship then it isn’t a good one…Which is simply untrue.

I think you’re oversimplifying the past. Read some history and/or lit from the past…nobody makes finding a spouse or keeping a life with them intact sound easy.

Although…maybe it used to be easier when a person’s life expectancy was something like 50 years. Not as long a time to put up with the person you’re married to 

What the media is really doing is just making whirlwind romances. It’s something to pull at the heartstrings and sell movies. The feeling they are trying to sell is emotionally addicting. And that might be at the root of the problem. People go on that feeling, until the feeling goes away, then they think the relationship’s over and they have to find someone else.

I met my husband for the first time in April and we were married in the middle of July the same year. You cannot state that I do not ‘love’ him because I havn’t had the chance to get to know him completely inside and out.

Marriage is about loving someone, HONESTY and committing to stay with each other. Most people fuck their marriages up by being pussies and thinking

‘oh this is harder than I thought, I can’t be bothered to work at it’

‘hmm what if theres someone better out there?’

etc.

I knew I loved him from the very beginning. We were (and still are) open and honest, not aiming to please each other, but totally respectful to one another and I care for him sooooo much. He makes me complete and he would do anything for me.

If in 10years time, we are sick of each other, both a bit fatter and wrinklier and miserable. We will be ok, because we expect it to happen and we expect to work through it. BECAUSE WE LOVE EACH OTHER.

I didn’t want to marry before I met him but it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. People give up on love too easily because they can’t be arsed to try and work through the rough patches.

nicely articulated

The media just warps it really badly. It’s funny that a picture from the Twilight series was chosen for this post because it’s the perfect example. A friend of mine studies social work and has read these books. Mind you she’s been trained to spot abuse and going by standard definitions of abusive relationships they Twilight exemplifies it. However, these books just call it love…

All the media has done to me, is made me want more romance ahha. But I know that those movies are all bullshit. So people should take the movies with a grain of salt and watch them for entertainment and not life lessons. They are trying to make movies to entertain you, not to teach you what love is or how you should find love.

In my opinion if the media ruins love for you, then you’re watching way too much television or movies, or you’re just plain silly. Use your head for pete’s sake.

…and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Basically, we’ve become a society of intentions and feelings rather than actions and responsibilities. Love used to be a verb, you chose to love someone, and to continue to love them… instead of expecting to fly by the seat of your pants, dazed and confused, wishing for butterflies and fireworks every minute after fifty years of marriage.

the media hasn’t ruined love, people have LET it ruin love. people need to stop being so easily influenced by what they see in the movies or read in novels. everyone is going to have their own perception on love, that’s normal. some people do have that “movie romance”, but so long as you find love, who cares how it happened?

some people fall for their best friends after ten years, some people fall in love over the internet, through ads in the newspaper, after getting to know someone they met in a bar, after being introduced through a friend…there are so many ways to meet people, and so many ways you can fall in love. at the end of the day, why should it matter how it happened? it’s the end result that’s important.

I think what you mean to say is that the media has ruined marriage, or the traditional family.

And by media, it seems as though you mean modern movies.

But such delusions of love have been present as long as there has been love stories. I mean, look at Jane Austin, as well as other romantic literature. And by “romantic” I mean literature prone to idealisim. 

If love is, as you say, nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain, then that chemical reaction can end. What modern media has done, if it’s done anything, is show people that when that chemical reaction is no longer present, it is alright to leave and find that feeling elsewhere, especially if you’re unhappy in the relationship. And partially the cause for that is the removal of laws forbidding divorce.

The media is always full bull crap, always has been, it spoiled teens into rushing into adulthood, it caused children to wanna be teens right away, it preaches about one night stands to be rightful! Sometimes people should realise it is all fiction.

I thought that love was only true in fairy tales, meant for someone else but not for me! Love was out to get me, that’s the way it seemed… Disappointment on my dreams.

right on! I think that love in movies is the same love in reality. It’s just that the movie don’t show you what happens after “happily ever after” because there isn’t one. You might fall head over heals for someone and then get over it. Movies only show the falling not what happens after.  

I completely agree. I always said Disney movies were the reason I was doomed to never find true love (aka no is gonna magically turn me into a princess & help me find my prince!). No is expected to stay in relationships anymore. If I was married in the 40s and I got divorced or my husband left me, I would be known as the town hussy. Women wouldn’t want me around to tempt their husbands and it would be assumed I was a bad wife. We live in a new century now and women are considered strong & independent. Also, it is no longer seen as shameful to get a divorce. With this ideal view of love, if your marriage didn’t work, then that guy wasn’t the one.

I believe there are thousands of guys out there I could be potentially happy with. It just depends on who I meet, the timing, and other the circumstances.

The problem is (in my opinion), we have no phrase for that feeling of lust. No one wants to talk to their friends over how infatuated they are with this new guy. “Like” is too weak of a word, so we jump to “love”. I’ve felt it before. It’s like being in 3rd grade and discussing whether you like someone or you like-like someone. So unless someone thinks of something better, I think I’ll start telling guys I like-like them. It’s just more appropriate haha!

I agree, media tends to shape our expectations.  And why wouldn’t we want a Prince Charming?  Why wouldn’t a little girl want to swept off her feet?

I think it’s just important to not be too dependent on our expectations that are based off the media we grew up on.  I had an image, an experience in my head that I associated with love.  And then I experienced love, and it’s not anything like what you see in movies.  But it is a hundred times better.

very true my friend. love is such a beautiful thing. when its used correctly, the two lovers lives are blessed beyond imagination, but when used incorrectly, someone ALWAYS gets hurt.

people say that they know what love is but most of them dont. lust is that passion. ( depends on what type of passion it is maybe )

The best descrition of love is found in the bible. You dont even have to be a christian to love the way the bible describes love to us =]

couldnt agree more =P

@fuzzi_mushroom@xanga - Same here. But instead of just blaming Disney, I also blame romance novels. T_T 

I agree.

I totally agree with you. I think the media shows love as something that is perfect, and always ends in this beautiful love story. It makes women think our man should be romantic every second of the day all the time or he just isn’t up to par. It makes men think that women should be airbrushed looking flawless and 100% sexual all the time or we are just grouchy feminists. Love is something you work at everyday. You may not even feel it all the time, and that is okay. As long as at the end of the day being with that person is what matters to you. One or two movies may have some good points about love like, Just Married with Ashton Kutcher, “Some days your mother and me loved each other. Other days we had to work at it. You never see the hard days in a photo album… but those are the ones that get you from one happy snapshot to the next. I’m sorry your honeymoon stunk but that’s what you got dealt. Now you gotta work through it. Sarah doesn’t need a guy with a fat wallet to make her happy. I saw how you love this girl. How you two lit each other up. She doesn’t need anymore security than that.” or the Wedding Date, “I’d rather fight with you than make love to anyone else.” I think those are actually decent representations of what real love can be. But on the whole the media does a pretty bad job of portraying love.

I agree, although is it media that should be blamed, or people who buy into the fantasies that media construct for us? Commercial movies, following your examples, are entertainment — It is up to US to decide where the line between fantasy and reality is, no?

p.s. “media” is a plural term… 

I agree.  People see love as outfits, you put one on and then at the end of the day take it off for another. I hate more than anything people who date consecutively saying that they “love” their current beau when they have only known them for a few days, and when that’s over (within a week to two months) already have another beau that they are madly in love with.  I’m all for searching for the right one and all those hopeless romantic ideals (because I am one too), but the reality is it’s hard to come by and movies just make “true love” seem like a rule not an exception.

And I’m not trying to say that if you meet someone and then fall in love with them in a couple days, then that’s not real, because I think that under the right circumstances that very much could be real.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 6 years. Sometimes it’s exactly like the movies, he’s my very own Prince Charming

i agree lol =D but i guess its really all about whether you really want commitment or not :/ and i live in a place where a lot do not x-x 

I couldn’t have said it better. I love movies that are love stories, but I hate when people think that’s how it has to go for things to work. 

I don’t believe in love in first site, or falling in love in a week.

but I don’t agree with the feelings. I’ve loved people longer than a year

and i’ve had those intense feelings of passion and such, and you can’t

tell me that’s lust if i’ve had it every day for a year while getting to know them.

Okay. If you know someone before YEARS before you start dating them, say they are your bestfriend and you have been in love with them for years, no one can say you don’t love them yet, if you start dating and say you love eachother on the first day of dating BECAUSE YOU KNEW EACHOTHER BEFORE.! Had to get that off my chest.

umm how do you know that love is not a whirlwind of emotions that feels like gravity, yada yada. For your information that’s exactly what love feels like. Media doesn’t ruin love, people take it too far. Do the world a favor and let people express themselves without criticism and judgment. There’s a reason it’s called freedom of speech. But we have a bunch of pouting, sad little girls looking for an effing vampire soul mate? Umm news flash; this isn’t the author’s problem, it’s the moron who thinks vampires exist. The media hasn’t ruined love; jealous little girls have.

Gosh, this is so true.

I also think that because of what we see in the media about love, people who really love eachother doubt that they do or question how great the relationship really is. And that is extremely sad.

I know it has happened to me before.

And I really do not think she was saying that crazy whirlwind feelings do not exist in love. She is just saying (I believe) that its not all of the time and it is not love itself. There is more to it.

You’re right, the media has altered the meaning of love but I think marriage is a different issue. Because there are so many different religions and beliefs about marriage its controversial whether the media has effected it or not. For example back in the day there were arranged marriages which a lot of the time had nothing to do with love and everything to do with status (like how some parents would arrange their daughters to marry someone of importance or with a title to their name) and wealth.
Actually you know what?? I don’t think that there ever was much of a meaning to marriage (don’t get me wrong, I believe in marriage) but just thinking back through history no one really married for love, like royal people only marrying those with royal blood…..it seems that the only people who get married for love are those people in the movies….wait I’m just confused now.

This is a good topic, it got me thinking (Y)

We all know that things portrayed on television are predominantly for show, so why are you wasting your breath?

All they say is fuck, fuck, fuck so that they can open up that channel in most as some sort’of halfassed control tool.  It’s getting old.  Their dollars are starting to fade, so they’re desperate.  Making a society high so that they can pull end game and leave before the disaster.

Itzam Cab Ain is opening his eye and Katun’s word will mean nothing as theirs has all along for they are of Katun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbagqawqn3s We agree.

I don’t fall in love, and I can’t have success, so I don’t want offspring, and I don’t want some worthless bastard’s halfwit monsters either. 

@DAMN_itsz_KRYSIE@xanga - because it affects society and it’s not logical or serving any purpose.  No checks or balances. 

The dude in Avatar was there for almost three months before he hooked up with the girl!

@EaSyIcEdLaTTe@xanga - I know, I am using movies as my prime example from the media catagory.

I ruined love.

yeah i think that makes sense… but its for sure not the media’s fault that divorce rates have decreased. its just society in general that has evolved to avoid sacrifice in marriages in favor of the ability to divorce. and people do fall in love that quickly sometimes… its not to say that its at full blossom, but sometimes people know within a weeks time that perhaps they have a real potential with that person. perhaps it is the dreamer in me that believes in true love, but i dont think its that easy to meet soulmate, maybe there is more than one guy or girl for you, but there is definitely very few and for that reason, you must hold on to them as they do in movies

I agree I think people see that getting married is just a fun thing to do and if it works it works and if it doesn’t they can always get a divorce. Before sex outside of marriage became so popular divorce rates were WAY lower. This is a major issue with our society today, many guys and girls think having premarital sex is okay, and that they should do it. I’m sorry but I am waiting for my ONE and only husband I’m sorry I’m not doing ANYTHING with him until after we say I do.  In the 1950′s if a girl of any age got pregnant out of wedlock it was really frowned upon. I’m not saying we should shun them but its not okay. People make mistakes but that doesn’t mean its okay.

And I blame society! and movies; and celeberties.

I completely agree with you on this.  Love, to me, takes time to develop, grow a foundation, and flourish.  However, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen quickly for others.  I believe love can happen quickly, but sadly, the media makes people believe it ALWAYS happens quickly, which is simply not the case.  Really, there is no mark for when you can fall in love.  It’s an emotion, and the most powerful one there is at that.  Who’s to say ‘You can’t fall in love with her, you’ve only been going out for 5 months/a day/a year/etc. etc.’?  I believe you can safely say you’re in love once you get to KNOW the person, and decide that’s the person you’re in love with.  

Hmm. I like how the media portrays love. I like to believe that these things portrayed in movies could be real, like they could happen in everyday life. I cry every time I watch Titanic, its a beautiful movie and I wish more men were like Jack Dawson. But yes, most movies and songs and whatnot get the whole idea of love wrong. In reality, love isnt that amazing, you dont fall in love at first sight and you dont stay together forever. We just hope to find love like how it is in the movies.

Im married and have been for over a year. Im young and probably naive but I love my husband more than anything on this planet. I understand that the odds are against us, not only are we young but marriages just dont last like they used to. My parents divorced when I was a child and it hurts every day to realize they weren’t strong enough and then I remember my grandparents, who have been happily married for nearly 70 years. They went through war together, tragic times decades of births and deaths and right there at the end, even a decade or so of alzheimers and dimentia. Not once did they give up each other.

So who knows, maybe the movies got it right somewhere.

Well…technically marriage was more about property/status/producing little heirs back in the olden days…

I have a fiance, and yes there’s passion, intimacy, friendship and all of the stuff people expect out of two people in love. But what people don’t see is the amount of work we put in to stay connected. Love isn’t all about feeling comfortable, it isn’t about sex, and it sure as hell doesn’t just happen overnight.

I think the biggest issue I have with how the media portrays relationships is that they turn every couple into this giant mushy glob with the same interests, thoughts, etc. I think that a lot of people don’t realize it’s okay to be your own person and to have a life outside of your coupledom.

People nowadays tend love is directly proportional to passion (but not all people believe, of course). The less passion, the less the person loves their significant other.

Also, due to the times, people are apt desire instant gratification, quick fixes, etc.
So, every fight or little problem that happens in a relationship explodes to something so much more than it actually is; then people separate.

How sad.

wow, I agree!!! And also, people that are learning the difference in love and sex, people who are growing up in this decade are going to think that love has to be like this [media portrayed] way. They’re going to waste so much of their life and time searching for Twilight’s definition of love. It’s an obsession of the mind that love has to be perfect and unconditional feeling you have for someone. When actually you could’ve probably threw away your love…for what? sex…lol

 LOVE IS A UNCONDITIONALGESTURE TOWARD SOMEONE THAT YOU HAVE CHEMISTRY WITH.  YES TELEVISION HAS RUINED IT FOR US ALL.  THEY MAKE YOU THINK THAT IT’S EASY, WHEN IN FACT IT’S NOT.  IT’S A RELATIONSHIP IN WHICH YOU DEDICATE YOU LIFE TO PLEASING THAT PERSON.  THEY’VE MADE IT SEEM LIKE IT’S OKAY TO HAVE WHO EVER YOU WANT, IF THAT ONE DOES’NT WORK. BUT TRUE LOVE IS NEVER ENDING.

“They then completely throw their previous life out the window, and everything in their life turns into an obsession.”
i do believe some movie characters have done this. and including twilight as the prime example? perfect!

Me & my husband have been married for six months now. & dated for only eight months before we tied the not. I love him to death but lately I’ve been feeling stuck when it comes to us. We always fight and we say we love each other but I think we lost that love. For me I watch those romantic movies in envy, I look to them as who I should be looking for. & when I find someone with the right qualities I think I found the one. & I agree with you, It isn’t how it should be. You can fall head over heals with someone but one of these days your gonna be back to normal. I wont give up right away on our relationship I just wish I took more time instead of rushing things..

So there it is, my sob story lol.

That isnt true if you look at this topic in another light, for example, movies all have their own themes which make them special, the movies are only portraying the movie writer’s point of view of what love is, movies are only for entertainment, it isn’t real, it only makes it look real to attract people to go and watch it at the theatres so they can make a profit out of it, their new ideas of love makes it interesting, yes, only for money, that is why i like to stick to old re-runs of meaningful cartoons that used to teach me something, watching those movies seem more real to me than the media and now-movies

i think selfishness has ruined love.

back then life was simple, people lived simply…men relying on their hands to provide for their family, women raising the children and cooking dinner.

everyone wants everything for themselves, nowadays.

truly…what ruins love? cheating….lying….all things that come from vanity.

media portrays what the idea of love has to offer…passion, unending entwining passion. yes their time scheme is WAY off, but the world is giving up hope of such passions.

media fairytales keep it alive in some senses.

i don’t understand how anyone thinks they can quantify how long it should take to fall in love with someone. my boyfriend and i said “i love you” to each other and meant it 3 weeks after we started dating. i didn’t know him as well as i did then, but i have felt the same way for over 13 months now. 

the problem is that some people in these situations dont think about the realities of relationships that get serious fast. in reality, there are plenty of people who fall in love fast but make it work. you cant group everyone together like that.

Thank you for writing this article! I agree that the media has ruined our image of love. I’m not against romantic movies or against anyone who wants to constantly feel that “passion” of love. There will never be a guy that will make you happy or passionate 100% of the time. In my personal experience, that “flying” feeling won’t bail you out in really icky situations, but a loyal guy that you’ve been dating for a long time will.

I’ve been dating a guy for 5+ years now. We met in our early 20s. He isn’t romantic like the guys in the movies, you know, the flowers, love letter, what not. He’s obnoxious, making faces at me at random times or farting sounds at other times. He doesn’t call every night and doesn’t give presents during the traditional holidays (Valentines, Christmas, Birthdays). He gives presents whenever he feels like it. But whenever I need help, he has always come to my assistance.

I do believe that the media can over romantize things.  But I would disagree with parts the marriage thing.  Most ppl didn’t really have the option of divorce 50 years ago so ppl stayed together b/c they had to.  Ppl have more options and want different things now then before.  Plus love can happen on anytime line.  You can get to know someone extremly well in a matter of a week versus another person who you’ve known for 3 years.  It depends on you, the other person and how open they are to each other.  I know a couple and after a month of each other got married.  They recently celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary and have 6 kids, not sure how many grandkids.   

@goodbye__dinah@xanga - LOL. Awesome response.

@meeschoo@xanga - Jack was an artist who was struggling to get a bite to eat. Kate’s fiance was a rich prick. Some girls would just go with the rich prick and fantasize about being together with the starving artist. That’s just my take on my reality.

@goodbye__dinah@xanga - you say you agree but then you go on to attack people with long distance relationships… One of the viewpoints expressed by the writer is that “love is more than just passion”. If you look at passion mainly in the physical sense, then LDR’s are therefore the ultimate love… It is a relationship without the physical passion, it is solely based on connecting with one another in a deeper way. You build a relationship on the foundation of higher and stronger than merely a physical one… That’s just my two cents guys (and girls).

@goodbye__dinah@xanga - Oh and if you’re curious about my situation, I’d be happy to describe it to you because I myself am in a LDR but I have seen the girl many times and even stayed with her at her home. :]

Modern media is mere portraying ideas about love that predate tv, movies, etc etc by thousands of years. Greek mythology is filled with gods and mortals, husbands and wives, mistresses and lovers betraying, plotting and pining for each other with a sudden and desperate passion. The idea of “love at first sight” is at least as old as writing and probably older. If anything is to blame for this simplistic and unrealistic idea, it’s human nature, not movies, tv and teen vampire sagas.

<li class=”itemsubmitter”>fuzzi_mushroom@xanga - i totally blame disney also :p

love is a very powerful force is what the media means do not give up on the seeking of the love who can make it true because that is what love does for each person.  clue; it can take a while and it helps to be who you are.

Love is actually mean 2 peoples chemistry.U said love is not stayed hole life.It is not true.I think oneday will come true love.U can quarell with him/her but u still love this person.

@j_e_n@xanga - LOL! so true!

i’ve been with my boyfriend for a year and i THOUGHT i knew i loved him very early on. but our relationship has changed over that year and it’s a different “love” now.. perhaps it was only lust before? haha!

Marriage takes more than just Love that is reality and NO Love does NOT concur all nor does Love always last forever…

I don’t believe the media has completely destroyed the meaning of love. To me, the media is the a reflection of a societies’ beliefs. I would say that the media (the society) has altered the meaning of love as you described in the weblog, but not exactly “completely destroyed” the meaning of love.

welcome to the first ever romance movies ever written or shown.
it has never changed this

People should understand that there is no such thing as romantic love, just chemicals that go wild in the brain for something as funky as phermones.

If I have to read one more front page rant on a wholly subjective matter or the definition of a word I’m going to explode.

that is all.

also: THE MEDIA!

@fuzzi_mushroom@xanga - *likes* xD

@Konrado@xanga - More like don’t subscribe to cable, stop using the internet, and stop reading books, magazines, and stick to non-fiction newspapers while eating meat, and anything else you can kill with a stone and a sling.

I agree with you, I really do but that is what love is to you. What love is to you and what it is to another person is entirely different. Just as 2 people can’t love everything about each other they also can’t think the same way about love at a 100%. What I’m saying is if people want to think that movie love is the way to go and they can find somebody the same way than thats love to them. Love comes from the brain a little spot that starts with an “H” (I forgot the name lol). And you know what they say no 2 people are the same. So in a way love is different to everyone which means you determine the way to make you’re own brand of love to fit the partners feelings and likings and only when each other can accept their versions of love is when they reach compatibility and form there own little love which can be released in many forms. From a baby, to a kiss on the lips, to marriage. As you have your own ways of creating love you also have your own ways to express it. But thats just my opinion I’m no professional ofc XDDDD P.S. I LOVE!!!!! ——>http://sacredwriter.xanga.com/<—— I LOVE!!!!!!

true! people seem to think that love has to have passion or else you’re just heartless and mean or doing some disfavor to somebody. Love IS about comfort too.

I LOVE this post, hehe. Completely agree! The media hurts real love.

I kind of agree with goodbye_dinah and MoonFaeEyryn.

The media does alter love in many ways, and so many base what they want off of movies, and media love. That is pretend, it’s a movie, you can;t believe every fairy tale.

But, my love life is pretty amazing, and it’s kind of been like Allie and Noahs in “The Notebook”. Lol (:

LOVE in fact does make you feel that you are ‘flying’
however the problem is that the flights don’t last long enough
I don’t blame media for that

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I was just about to write about disney too!
Totally ruined my was to be witty comment…

BUT
instead I can add.
I hate edward cullen.

As a rule of thumb i’d say the media tries to destroy anything and everything that offers the possibility of happiness. Not to say i agree with your logic on what love is one hundred percent, but we all have our own tweaks of thought on it, no matter ; )

well i have experienced the medias version of love. and i had even more than what they portray… i could ‘feel’ when she was nearby even when i couldn’t see her (ie different room or floor)… and i could be understood… never felt like any of the things before… or after :/

point is it does exist… but can be a real let down…

I somewhat agree with your perception.  I don’t think the media has ruined love, they have just painted love in a picture that they think the average, bored housewife will fantasize about.  The media shows love as a dream scape of passion and lust that is largely absent from the world.  But that’s what movies are for, to make people long for that fantasy world they wish they had.  Nice post, thanks.
Tim

I’ve been grumbling about this sort of thing for years, so I’m on the same page as you.  But I also take a piece of fiction and treat it as fiction, not as something that would happen in my life.  *LOL*  Silly people!

that was cool, i get where your goin, love isnt the same as it was in the old days, but then again, nothing stays the same, everything changes, and sometimes it sucks lol.  

Love is different for everyone. The requirements for love differ as well. For some people, sexual intimacy can make or break the success of their relationship. Without that physical connection they feel distant. It’s all about cravings. Some people crave more of a physical connection. Some people crave a mental one. Some people want someone to argue with, someone that will challenge them mentally. Although that might not seem like the ideal marriage or the quintessence of what love should be, for someone else it might.

The amount of time in which it takes a person to fall in love varies widely. It depends on the amount of time spent together. it depends on the level in which the people connect initially. It depends on what they have in common, what each person is looking for, and what they’ve found in the other person. Sometimes that one thing theyre looking for jumps out immediately when they meet that ‘one’ person. For whatever reason it was so apparent, it was. Once you’ve found that one thing, that thing that you had been so convinced you’d never find, that thing that maybe you didn’t even realize you were looking for, maybe you didnt even know what possible, didnt even know existed, its hard to control the effect it has on your heart.

There is no time limit on this effect, and there is not minimum amount of time required for this effect to go into effect.

Just remember that love has a different effect on everyone, and you cannot put someone else’s love in your perspective, because you won’t -cannot- understand it.

I don’t blame it on media. I think media just portrays love how we want to portray love. You know, the love that is only found in fairy tales. The kind of love that we all dream about, where you fall in love with that one person and live happily ever after.

Most of us know the reality. That love sometimes hurts. That love sometimes takes time to grow. And that love sometimes never works out the way we want it too. Sometime you need to work at what you have, that to truly know the good, you need to know the bad as well

But sometimes the two old couple (who have been married for some 50 odd years) who we want to be like did fall in love the moment they laid eyes on each other. And the truth is.. sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t.

Mostly it comes down to how you look at love. Are you a hopeless romantic, the kind that wants a fairy tale? or are you a realist?

I’m a bit of both.

Human beings want “easy”. We dont go to movies to watch reality… if our real lives and problems were interesting we wouldnt feel the need to “escape”. Movies are faery tales… and people basing their lives on faery tales will have a rude awakening.

definitely the media has changed what love means to the world. but it also up to you, or whoever to define love for yourself. after all, love really has no definition.

I completely and utterly agree. I hate the media, especially Disney, for turning love into this magical thing when in reality, it hurts like hell. When people realize this, however, it’s too late and they’ve given their love away. The media needs to stop with the fairy tales. Love is never that simple. 

duh, the media has ruined almost everything in life, for profit.

I agree whole-heartedly.

i dont even want to begin. hahaha.

Without trying to be too social-political i’ll just say this:

Stick your middle-finger up the overly liberalized media (hollywood, et al). Whether it’s about unrealistic love or unrealistic, nearly and/or grotesque sexuality…fuck them all.

I agree, but I think we also need to remember that the media SELLS only what the public will BUY.  Real love is about actions and commitment, even when the passionate feelings are gone.  You may feel butterflies years and years later (and I hope you do) but you won’t always feel that way every day.  People leave marriages because no one is willing to put the work and self sacrifice into them anymore.  

How would people behave if divorce wasn’t possible?  Would people pick their marriage partner more carefully?  Would people maybe put more work into their marriages, knowing that there are no alternatives?  I’m not saying there’s never reason for divorce (like abuse, infedelity,etc.), but people are just so lazy and selfish these days.

love is best defined, in all of its forms, but sternberg’s tiangular theory of love,

as seen here.that’s the definition of love.

@Trendiscretionationalie@xanga - um i’m pretty sure “liberlized” media has nothing to do with anything this post talks about. 

@secretnotestomyself@xanga – It has everything to do with it. Would you call MTV (which is a media network) conservative? Would you call Hollywood conservative? No…because they’re “liberal” hence liberal media. The brand of liberalism in the United States distorts everything so much that it becomes a negative and not a positive and love is a part of that.

In your world, and no offense, but unfortunately your definition of liberalism is (possibly) narrowly defined as always positive.

I Agree. Although I have to say that movies can indeed show this unrealistic dream we want to insert ourselves in, I watch them for entertainment, for an 1 hour and 45 minutes of a dream! Although, they do warp some minds, but back in the day there were no devorces to allow anyone to fall into. It cost you your life. Now its easier, so when the going gets tough, and you rather get going from that person, then happily do so.
People confuse lust and love so often, it makes me ill.

I don’t really like this post. Blaming the media is really ignorant. The portrayal of love in movies is what many people really want. It does exist. And how quick characters seem to fall in love in movies seems fast but it’s really not. A typical movie is two hours or less, do you really think that within the two hour time frame you are going to see every moment and every day the characters spend together? Probably not…I get what your trying to say but just think about it. People can dream you know. It doesn’t seem like you’ve been in love.

Epic win! Couldnt be more right.

Yeah, the media totally ruined Tiger Wood’s and his wife’s love =/

THANKKKKKKKKKKKKK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!
This was an awesome post. I totally agree. The media shows love like lust with no self-control. It’s like animals.

thank you, i agredd 100%.

They did destroy it, at large. But not without a little help from their friends(us).

Bring a truer love back to life.

I want the fairytale

I feel like the media has portrayed a very unrealistic view of love. Movies like Twilight are ridiculous. Men are not like Edward. The Notebook is a compelling story, but summer romances like that are very rare. True love takes time to develop. You have to see the good and bad sides of a person and accept that person as a whole. It is complicated. It takes dedication. I’ve only been in love once, but it didn’t work out because our lives went in two different directions. It was a great experience though. Yes, chemicals are involved, but true love is very real. 

totally agreed

i definitely believe that the media has played its part when it comes to the desecration of the meaning of love. i think the media shows brief extracts of what may or may not be functional relationships, and that varies widely with each story. however… it does give constant hope, however unrealistic the story may be. it’s okay to want what those characters have, but those situations are rare, skewed, and/or have no basis on reality, so you have to draw yourself a line and remember when a story is just a story. i am also a strong believer in marriage and the work required to sustain its longevity. it used to be such a powerful, incredible institution that involved promises, commitment, lifetimes, things that don’t seem to be in style anymore. and what a shame that is! now, to some people, it’s a bit of paperwork and an ornamental ceremony that can be undone at any time. it breaks my heart, truly. good post- although the media has only done a bit of the damage. it’s mostly what is in us: the promises we are ready to make, the work we are willing to do. What you want out of life and love is not always as easy as being swept off your feet by a white knight. And even if you are lucky enough to have that happen… try and think of what happens when the film stops rolling. It’s all up to you. Love is an adventure indeed, but think about what adventure means. The bulk of any adventure consists of challenges and strife. That’s what makes it so worth it.

I have to disagree, completely. I think a lot of people don’t know what love is anymore, but I truly do believe that there is that one person that makes you fly. I can say that because I’ve found mine. And I’ve tried to find someone else to fall in love with, and it didn’t work. So I have to say I believe in love, REAL love.

Poor media jkjk i agree. The media does kinda screw up love. But if people completely rely on the media as truth, they are kinda stupid and get what they deserve LOL

it’s like willy wonka’s magic chocolate bar TV. They start with a 40 foot chocolate bar, so that when you sit there at home, it comes out the right size.

You have to make stuff cartoony, larger than life for it to translate through a flawed medium.
Exaggeration and caricature are two of the artists’ finest tools, ways of directing the audience’s attention to what they’re illustrating, a zoom lens for highlighting pertinent details.

The story of Mike Teevee is all about the addiction to television, living in virtual reality. It miniaturises *you* if you wish to step through the screen.
Trust me, a 100% realistic movie nobody wants to watch. They’ve already got real life. It’s complex & confusing, hard to see the wood for the trees. Stories are prepackaged wood, a clarified message, a distillation of experience. Just the plot highlights with the colour turned up.
I don’t watch a lot of movies, I don’t find that the directors are highlighting the right things, I don’t like the caricatures. I think that consumerism, loneliness, mistrust & cynicism should be emphasised, I liked american beauty for those reasons.
I think I know why the film makers are making such banal films, the people running the film business takes so much cocaine, xanax & money that I’m surprised they can walk let alone make a movie. They live under horrible financial pressure, and they don’t consider that as communicators they must have ethics, integrity. Generally it’s about breaking even, rather than informing the viewer.
_______
however, in legendary stories of all cultures, the power of love is portrayed the same: the heroic but gung ho protector and the vulnerable but strong minded beauty.
I’ve felt it. It’s real.

I know what you mean… and about Disney also… it’s true, watching fantasy tales gives this idea of what love should be like… Part of me wishes it was like that, but then again, the logical part of me knows it is not, and also appreciates real love which is never flawless. I know that too, from personal experience. Now that i think about it, i’d rather keep this first and only relationship that i am in than exchange it for some perfect romance, because it would feel awkward, and this experience has allowed my bf and i to grow together and become closer in a human way. (lol)
I dunno what i’m even trying to say. I understand the post though. I think it’s fine to appreciate the fictitious love stories being portrayed on screen, but know enough not to expect it in real life and let that illogical stuff interfere with what we know love can only ever be.. or something…

The media satisfies our fantasies and it spawns new ones relative to them. It’s an endless cycle. They take from us what we take from them and on and on.

But we’re not all brainwashed by it; affected, sure but the average person is rooted in reality.

If not, just get a reality check.
Heck, it’ll come sooner or later.

agree, I guess… to some extent.

I don’t think there is one definition of love. Love can be different things for different people, everyone feels it differently, and there is no way for outsiders to know what someone else is feeling. I agree that some people rush into things because they feel passion and all that, but sometimes it does end up working out. I think by condemning the media for having one opinion on how love is ends up being hypocritical. I don’t mean this as an insult at all, obviously my own opinion could be seen as hypocritical as well…But hey, debating points is always fun : )

Well the media is crap.  You cannot expect to have a love like they show in movies or on tv shows.  It would be nice but it just doesn’t happen.  After you date a while you learn what you want and dont want in a relationship and you make that very clear from the get go.  If they disagree then BUH–BYE!  They guy that I am currently dating is a few years older than I am, he was actually a friend of my brothers.  Both of our last relationship was crap and we both agree on a lot of things.  You should be open, faithful, and honest.  Without trust or honesty you really don’t have anything.  And another bit of advice, just because one guy screwed you over dont hold your guard up all the time around a new guy.  I say trust everyone until they do you wrong.

for the record, wasn’t it something like 3 months Jake spent with Neytiri before they fell in love?

anyway, that’s beside the point. i don’t think media has ruined love. and if it has, it is nothing new. modern media is not to blame for this contamination of “pure, honest love.” stories of extremely powerful love springing up in a matter of days have been told for centuries (Romeo and Juliet, for example) – they are not just some modern trend rising with the influx of Twilight material. and while i don’t believe in “one person for everyone,” I do believe in soulmates, twin souls and twin flames.Soul Mates are souls we have met and lived with in many life times. They have been our lovers, spouses, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, teachers, students, friends, and family, or even our enemies, victims, or tormenters. We contract with these souls to return to earth together for greater learning and growth. You can often spot a soul mate or karmic relationship by “love at first site” or “revulsion at first site”, depending upon the lessons you’ve contracted to learn from this soul.Twin souls, also called Twin Flames or Twin Rays, are the other half of your soul. This is based on the belief that we are all parts of the Divine Being, God, All That Is, Source, Spirit, Creator. The Divine Being, in order to experience Its Self, divided into many souls, each in turn divided into many others and many others. The final splitting of the many neutrally gendered souls created male and female halves of a whole, the Twin Soul. These souls can recognize its other half in others, and as such spark a deep desire, connection and love for the other. however, these are simply my personal beliefs.
besides, if you go to a movie, do you want to watch lovers who, over a long, long period of hanging out and growing comfortable make a reasonable decision to get married, or a story about a whirlwind romance between two insanely passionate people that occurs over a week or so? yeah…..mostly, it’s all about money.

First of all, it’s silly to throw Avatar into the list of movies.  The plot takes place over the course of several months, so it was not just a span of a few hours or whatever.  Secondly, I don’t think you meant this, but it almost sounds like you’re blaming media for the higher divorce rates in the country.  Thirdly, the media portrays love in this manner, because that electric spark of being in love really is that amazing and that addictive.  Yes, trust and security are great in a truly loving relationship, but that is not what caused Romeo and Juliet or Paris and Helen.  Passion did.  And that’s what sells best in the media, for centuries and centuries now.  Maybe it’s not a legit picture, but it’s romantic and captures the imagination.  

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The best love story was in Boy Meets World. Nowadays movies don’t really understand how to portay love properly. Love is different in each relationship. Some have The Notebook relationships. Others have A Walk To Remember relationships. Others have BMW relationships. No relationship is the same and movies need to show that.