7 Things About Love That Make No Sense

1. Two people magically forming crushes on each other at the same time and then going out.

Perhaps its just my inherent pessimism about everything in life, but I’ve always felt like romances have to start because one person develops an obsessive interest in the other and then hunts them down in some emotional version of the Hunger Games wherein the last person standing gets to go home with their prized object of affection. It just seems too convenient for two people to just start liking each other at the same time, then tell each other about it in a reasonable, adult way, then end up dating like two capable, mature human beings. Where’s the challenge? Where’s the mystery? Where’s the crippling fits of self-loathing encountered while checking your phone for new text messages every 12 seconds? It’s just not natural.

2. People who are friends for a long time, then randomly start dating, then just go back to being friends.

I refuse to believe this happens, and yet I’ve met more than one couple who was like “Yeah, we were friends, and even though we didn’t really work out as a couple, we didn’t want to ruin the friendship by making things weird.” Umm, excuse me, no. Pretty much every friendship I’ve ever ruined is because we mushed genitals together for a while and then suddenly stopped, and I could no longer stand to make eye contact with them at house parties.

3. When a couple just starts making out in public places like that’s not completely disgusting and rude.

I understand the occasional bout of light PDA when you’re out with your lover and just feel overwhelmed with emotion and beauty, but come on. There is no way people are just legitimately inclined to start sucking prolonged face at any and all hours on public transportation, sitting on the same side of restaurant booths (???), or while waiting in line for a concert — unless they’re compensating for something. Like, I get that you are just so in love that it can’t wait until you get home, but even the people in happy relationships are put off by your egregious displays. Basically, if you’re the couple that just stands on the sidewalk for extended periods of time and boops noses together in between makeout sessions and sweet nothings, you deserve to get breadcrumbs thrown at you.

4. People who actually enjoy planning elaborate weddings.

This is so unreal. I am not even close to spitting distance from getting married, and I get an ulcer even thinking about the work that goes into planning an event for 100 of my closest friends and family. It’s so expensive, and tedious, and filled with problems, and people are waiting like starving vultures to pick apart the ceremony for flaws and judge you as a person based on its success. Like, people get ugly over weddings, and the pressure to make one a wonderful experience will harsh even the most robust buzz. I was recently at a wedding and was served relatively late in the service, and got a plate of cold (albeit good) food. I remember this strange, metallic voice I didn’t recognize in the back of my head being like “Ugh, gross. They can’t even serve hot food at their wedding. Why don’t they just hold it next to the above-ground pool in the back yard of their trailer?” I felt so disgusting and ashamed and yet, it was the wedding environment which brought it out in me. I can’t imagine having to throw one myself.

5. People who take engagement photos out in a field.

Is there some constitutional amendment I was unaware of that everyone, upon deciding to get married, is required to dress the groom up in suspenders/rolled up shirt-sleeves and head out to their nearest field of tall grass and take sepia-toned pictures next to abandoned train tracks whilst gazing off into the distance? Like, this can’t all be a coincidence????

6. When people get really high and mighty about online dating because it isn’t “real.”

You’re right, excuse me. There will always be something inherently dirty and disingenuous about my relationship because we met on a dating website, instead of all of the “real” places where people are allowed to meet, such as waiting in line for the bathroom at an 18+ club, or a masquerade orgy. And it’s often the people who are most into the concept of “romance” who are likely to poo-poo your decision to meet someone on the internet — to them, there is some little flame of magic which is snuffed out the second you click “send” on your first opening message. There is some kind of inherent naturalness which can only be found through meet-cutes in the produce section of your organic grocer, and online dating ruins it.

7. When people start a relationship by cheating and then end up working out in the long run.

Essentially, the second two people make it official who got together via one partner cheating on their ex, everyone in the group turns into secret cheerleaders for team “You Guys Deserve To End Badly.” The theory is that if they cheated on their ex with you, it’s only a matter of time before you get cheated on yourself. But sometimes, as in the case of Angelina or Leann Rimes, it just keeps trucking along in all its illicit glory until people kind of forget about the sordid beginning. And it’s tough, because we need to keep our faith in the universe by proving that starting a relationship by cheating can only end badly. Sometimes it doesn’t, though, and that shit is just wholly unfair.