Have you ever heard a song or watched a movie that made you wonder whether love is real or if it exists only in your head?
Speaking as someone who is named after Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon,” a song about love at first sight that calls love “a state of mind,” I often find myself struggling to understand the difference between what I imagine and what I experience.
The expectation of falling in love and entering a relationship with a special someone can come from listening to a song or watching romantic comedies like “13 Going on 30,” or “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.”
On the other hand, there’s the reality of finding that special someone and facing the possibility of rejection if you decide to confess the feelings you have for that person. My experience with the idea of romance is very confusing because I often go back and forth debating if confessing my feelings is even worth it. I’ve had moments where I’d finally built up the courage to confess to a crush, only to be left feeling rejected and even embarrassed.
The confessions of my past have either come back to haunt me or have formed some of my most successful relationships. Now, I have finally learned how to manage my romantic feelings and the desire to be in a relationship while dealing with spiraling thoughts on both the good and bad scenarios that could be the result of a simple confession.
When it comes to a special someone that I want to share my feelings with, there are multiple ideas that form in my mind, like what I’m going to say or how I’m going to act when I see my crush. Another thing that pops into my head is love songs.
When I daydream about the person I like, songs like “When Doves Cry,” by Prince or “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” by The Beach Boys, which have very different attitudes towards romance, come to mind. For example, in “When Doves Cry,” the singer attempts to talk to the person he is singing to, imagining a unified voice while in the middle of an argument, which is “what it sounds like when doves cry.” On the other hand, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” speaks of growing up with the love of your life and seeing it last a lifetime.
Among the many songs about reality vs. expectations or romance is the album “Rumours,” by Fleetwood Mac, which revolves around love and heartbreak. During the making of the album, the band members both dated and broke up with each other. Songs like “Go Your Own Way,” “Dreams,” and “Landslide” all talk about the realities of how relationships both come to fruition and also to an end.
Something I’ve noticed about myself is how I figure out if I really like a person or not. I know I like them when they make my heart flutter. But regardless of the heart flutters or butterflies in my stomach, no crush is safe from the “ick,” which is the girls’ version of a “red flag,” and the gut’s way of saying “no” before the brain can. I don’t choose who to dislike; the “ick” will choose it for me. The tiniest thing can make or break my attraction to someone. For example, if the person I am initially attracted to calls me pet names in public, I immediately lose all romantic feelings towards them.
When it comes to actually confessing feelings, I write notes or use nerdy pick-up lines related to popular culture references, and I’ve found those tactics to be my favorite ways of flirting. But my successes only came when I actually took the time to get to know the person. These pre-formed common connections led to the relationship blossoming into new chapters.
An example is my second relationship, with a guy I’d known since seventh grade, but we got to know each other better in eighth grade. We both had a common interest in movies and other forms of pop culture, which led us to date during our sophomore and junior years of high school. That relationship was actually the first time I thought, “I have found my person,” thinking I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, but it came to an end in a very mutual understanding.
That feeling of lust and attraction has impacted my life in so many ways. I feel as though I have faced more failures and rejections than successes. An example is when I once used a “Star Wars” pick-up line on a guy I had a crush on in high school; I said, “Did you like Rogue One? Maybe if we went out, we could be Rogue Two?” But he wasn’t in the right headspace for a relationship when I sent that line to him.
If you wonder what it may be like to be in a relationship or if it will turn out as it does in the movies, just ask yourself: Are you really about to overthink all these moments in your head, or are you just going to shoot your shot, confess those feelings, and possibly turn daydreams into reality?
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