Ever since Cupid shot his first bow, artists, musicians and scientests alike have pondered: What is love?
The Charlatan’s Richard Chandler talks to love experts and sufferers.
When Romeo looks at that shiny red apple he might see something so beautiful that he can only explain it by comparing it to divine and inconceivable feelings. When I look at that beautiful, shiny red apple, I ask myself who has had their hands on that apple before me? What kind of recipes could I create with that apple? Is there a possibility of worms? With all the dietary issues nowadays, I can’t commit to eating it without knowing the whole story. Romeo’s idea of love might be a little outdated said Jennifer Evans, professor of history of sexuality at Carleton.
“Love is really, very modern and hasn’t been around all that long,” she said. “The idea is only just developing.” So when singer Haddaway asks me “What is Love?” I tend to stutter and nod my head because I have no definite answer. “Love history was seen as a forbidden passion, a starlit love, that was seen as something wrong,” Evans said. That definitely doesn’t seem to be the consensus over the past 100 years.
I figured love had to be something more than what the English literature of yesteryear could provide. An anonymous student who I ambushed in a Loeb Building printing room spilt the beans on her own relationship and how she didn’t really feel serious affection for her partner until weeks into their dating. “I tend to think relationships like that are superficial and lack a lot of substance. . .
What started it?” she said. “I was really attracted to how he played badminton.” First impressions seem to be the foundation of the ivory tower of this love we have today but is it just a decision we consciously make or is there more to it? I wasn’t overly confidant that my one-sided, love-at-first-sight relationship with Megan Fox was true love. I was delighted when Michael Graydon, sociology professor at Carleton, told me that you can find true love like a “bolt of lightning through your system.” He told me that when he first saw his partner, the reaction was instantaneous and they’re still happy 25 years later. I was intrigued, but unfortunately he said he was the exception and that from a sociological point of view “people expect far too much from their significant others and it is not realistic.” I asked if he thinks people have an ideal partner in mind when they look at victims to cupid and he said “absolutely they do, in order for serial monogamy, most people do.”
I thought I might cry hypocrisy at that but I asked him instead why he spent three whole days with his partner upon meeting her. He said generally people seem to put on a facade of confidence, which might differ from who they actually are. People generally fall for “some sense of idealism,” like an Oscar Wilde character. So, how can anyone really love somebody else without fabricating the image of his or her partner like a corporate brand? I asked Kadeem Dunn, a first-year communications student, how he felt about girls and finding love. “Urges of love are rarely acted on, due to the unfortunate presence of societal barriers and psychological constructs that make walking up to a stranger and telling them that you’re perfect for each other strange and unattractive, despite the fact that it might actually be true.” No one seems safe in this ever-changing emotional rollercoaster that is love. Is love this ideal we throw up in our heads based on societal ideologies or is their more to it?