The Truth About Romance

Romantic comedies and romance novels often comprise entertainment for most of us. And who doesn’t enjoy watching two people meet, fall in love, break up, and kiss and make up at the end. A joyful wedding usually ends this drama and you cry and wish that you’ll have the same fairy-tale ending.

Rom-com’s Influence

You may say, “Come on! I’m not stupid. I know these movies or novels are not real.” But a psychology study conducted in Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh revealed that we are more influenced by these romantic comedies and romantic novels than we realize. We lap up what Hollywood and romance writers paint to be what love is. It creates expectations that will lead us to disappointment, mainly because they’re not real.  Sometimes we go on looking for that kind of love, with all the bells and whistles. But the truth about romance is that love takes time to develop, your partner will not express love the way heroes and heroines in movies do, and real love means you have to work on the relationship.

Love Takes Time

Almost all the plots in romantic comedies have the couple meet because they were destined to meet. The circumstances are often impossible and love often happens instantaneously. People often mistake that they will meet the love of their lives this way. They often focus on getting themselves into these kinds of impossible situations and when things don’t go like it does in romantic comedies or novels,  they get disappointed. So what they do is to get out of the relationship and look for love in the same way. Then the cycle starts over again. The truth is that love takes time to develop. You must get to know a person well and see whether your personalities mesh well with each other before you can love a person. And that cannot be done when you’ve accidentally met the person in a bus, either.

Saying “I love you” is Hard

We’ve seen how romantic heroes and heroines express their love for each other. Some express their feelings through sky-writing or have the hero overcome all odds to say how he’s really feeling complete with flowery words. What people don’t know is that it’s hard to say “I love you” especially if you don’t have a professionally-written script to help you. Some people express their love in less ostentatious ways and really mean it.

Love Means Work

A relationship is not a series of serendipitous incidences that just “happens.” Sometimes, for a relationship to stand the tests of time, you need to work on it. It requires sacrifice and compromise. It means understanding that your partner is flawed just as you are flawed and loving them nonetheless.

Romantic movies and novels really often gives us a full-color, larger-than-life depiction of love and if we don’t watch out for their insidious effects on our love life, we’re up for a lifetime of disappointment and broken hearts.