What You Want Love To Feel Like
By Thoughtis
You want love to feel like it does in the movies. You want a montage of you falling in love with someone, laughing for no reason when they fall down in a bed of leaves at a park (Oh my god, fall leaves. Oh my god, you’re on the ground. Oh my god, I’m in love!). You want it set to a really beautiful “This is me falling in love, bitches!” song. Maybe that Moldy Peaches song they used in Juno? That made you cry a little bit. Other scenes of your falling in love montage would include your lover drinking hot chocolate and getting whipped cream on their nose. “OMG, I love it when whipped cream is on your face and you don’t know it. I’m gonna smear it on your face and we’ll laugh OUTRAGEOUSLY cause we’re in love, duh!” There’ll be another scene of you kissing each other good-bye and giving meaningful glances as you walk away. Eating at a restaurant and having food in the teeth would be a good one too. “WHO, ME? FOOD IN TEETH? God, I love you…”
You want love to be mixed tapes, bike rides, playing your favorite album together on some vintage record player in your room, making a fort out of pillows together, sweet text messages. Kissing on a fire escape, going on adventures together, traveling to foreign lands, taking Polaroids on the beach, reading the paper on a Sunday afternoon, and writing little notes back and forth.
This is love with style and no substance. This is a choreographed kind of love. I’ve found that the most loving moments are typically the ones that would never actually be in the movies. I’ve felt love when taking a shower with someone and talking about the most unromantic things ever, I’ve felt love when someone pops a zit on my back or when they get really angry at me because then I know they care. If they ever get mad enough to leave, that’s when I know they’ll stay.
Sometimes what you want love to feel like is actually the opposite of love. And sometimes you can get what you want. Sometimes the right song cues up with the right moment and your life will feel like a movie. Those moments are special and sweet. They allow us leave reality for awhile, but they won’t be the defining moment of a relationship. Because the song will end and real life will come flooding back and then you’re just two people again, smooching and popping blackheads.
I used to want my love to feel like a movie. I would go out of my way to create moments with someone, moments I knew would look good in a scrapbook one day. But then I discovered that love doesn’t really work that way. The reality is that listening to records with your significant other can actually be super boring. You’re better off taking him to a family dinner. There are more opportunities for love in the uncomfortable moments, the ones you didn’t plan. So turn off Belle & Sebastian, stop flying those kites in matching t-shirts and just hand me a Pepto Bismol and rub my stomach. I love you best that way anyway.