Each month, I save up my free NYT articles to be utilized solely within the modern love column. When the freebies fail to satiate me, as is often the case, I move on to their podcast which I religiously listen to on my way to school every Thursday morning. Recently, they had a college contest in which college students were asked to submit an essay on what modern love looks like for them. To no one’s surprise, I did not participate. Be that as it may, I did think about the prompt and in my own way, attempted to provide a small answer to their very big question.
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It’s everything but L-O-V-E
The dreaded four letter word
It’s when the sweetest thing a guy says to you on your first date is
“Can I kiss you?”
Simple
Somewhat obvious
And yet the question you’ve never been asked before
It’s tinder matches
Bumble advances
Grinder hook ups
Coffee meets bagel
Closeted igirl meeting iboy in an i-kind-of-world
It’s splitting bills
Making moves on the first date
Names such as life partner
Or significant other
Because the ‘boyfriend’ title is so 2000 and late
Plus gender roles for who?
It’s learning the hook up (love?) short text language
DTF?
The difference between ‘Hey’ and ‘Heyy’
Netflix and chill?
Aubergines and peaches (sometimes even flashlights!)
Everything but the actual thing
To say what you want to say
It’s the labels we claim and assign
Softboi
Fuckboi
Toxic
She’s cancelled
A community always pointing outwards but rarely looking inwards
It’s anxiety on overdrive
Anxious attachments and avoidant attachments
Love terms learnt from YouTube gurus and podcasts
It’s online tests on love languages
Self help books to break ancestral cycles of trauma
After all, with this thing called love
Our generation has learned that no faith and intuition
Can give you enough insurance to be vulnerable
It’s only dating woke people
It’s only dating queer people
It’s only dating black people
It’s only dating low income people
It’s only dating feminists
Love these days is drawing a line
Dreading the day that the line might be crossed
It’s the warning when joking about having daddy issues
It’s the vulnerability in sharing about being raised by single mothers
It’s the trust in admitting one’s need for therapy
When space, time and a bit of change allow for it
It’s the “I have issues”
As an act of self preservation
Shared trauma being convoluted for shared love
It’s being safe in being weak
It’s considering “Wife material” as an insult
“Can you cook?” as misogynist
It’s the single friends who preach self love
It’s the girl who is always in a thing
Let’s call it a situationship
It’s hating being in need of someone’s love
And yet dropping one’s cynicism
For a chance at the most irrational desire ever known to humanity
It’s knowing Valentines to be a corporate holiday
But still wanting to celebrate it anyway
Because #wearelivingourbestlives
It sometimes lasts a lifetime
It most times lasts a couple of months
It’s knowing it doesn’t have to be forever
To be something that’s real
This kind of love my friend
Is what the great authors and playwrights
Of the often-talked-about-millennials
Will be forced to write about
One heck of a love story, don’t you reckon?
LOL
