5 Sensible Reasons Why We Shouldn’t Idealize Love and Romance

1. No one can be everything to you

No one is perfect. If you love someone, they will disappoint you. They will let you down. It’s inevitable.

So if we can get that on the table from the start, we’re more likely to be pleasantly surprised by just how much we can love a person (and be loved in return) despite our shortcomings.

When in love, people can become too critical of each other. What would normally not bother us at all starts to cause much bigger waves. And it’s silly. The single 1% of what our significant other does wrong can upset us catastrophically, while the other 99% they do right is taken for granted.

We should remember to go easier on each other, realizing that our flaws and those of our partners are far more exposed within the relationship than elsewhere. There’s a serious risk about idealism, which holds people to unrealistically high standards.

We only set ourselves and others up for repeated disappointment through our judgments.

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2. There are many happy people who never find everlasting love

Love is, in some ways, a choice. If you look very hard for it, you have a much higher chance of finding it. This is something well-proved in my own experience, when I was on and off of dating sites for years — before finally meeting my wife on Zoosk (which was a random last resort).

And plenty of people do find love over and over again, only to fall out of love when it doesn’t work out for them. They eventually settle for happiness in their independence.

There’s nothing wrong with being outside of a romantic partnership and being happy. If we idealize it too much, we’ll fail to see all the viable ways that life can work out, independently of love.

Maybe we just have a lot of great friends and family, love our job, our hobbies, maybe we even change the world. Basically, our affections and sense of purpose can manifest elsewhere, in equally positive ways.

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3. Love carries with it many responsibilities and strings attached

There’s a good reason why some people don’t want to get entangled with true love and romance. That kind of commitment isn’t for everyone.

Being in love, married, or whatever the specific relationship case, is better seen as merely one kind of lifestyle, different from another, not better than it. There are pros and cons to falling in love and staying with someone long- term.

You don’t get to try out other options. You’ll get to know the person deeply in all their strengths and weaknesses. And ultimately, you’ll usually have to share your life with them in more substantial ways. There will be sacrifices to be made.

Many people think they want love and romance, only to realize they aren’t serious about it. They can’t commit. They have a fear of missing out or feel overwhelmed by the demands of the relationship. And they end up wasting time.

Knowing all of that when we go in will help to soften the blow of how relationships can play out. It will help us to not bite off more than we can chew, and to be on the same page as our lover.

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4. A huge number of relationships don’t work out

What does that say for the pursuit of romance overall? It says that it’s just not all it’s cracked up to be.

Although the success stories are inspiring and make us see through rose-colored glasses, there’s more gray area needing to be acknowledged.

Think about all the relationships that don’t make it — and separate those into two categories: those that were close to making it, and those that never stood a chance.

Now do the same among those relationships that did make it — separate them into those that almost fell apart and those that were always stable. You’ll quickly see that there are many variations for how a relationship can play out.

It’s not just all-or-nothing, total, idealized love forevermore on the one hand, or complete loneliness on the other. There are plenty of shades in between, because we live in reality, not ideality. Where your experience falls on that continuum is for you to discover.

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5. Love isn’t what you see in movies, books, and tv shows

Love portrayed in the media barely scratches the surface of what it’s actually like. You aren’t perceiving reality. You’re perceiving a genre. Most of what’s there is there because it sells.

When there are nonfiction stories, think about all that you aren’t seeing. Use your imagination and logic to picture what isn’t being mentioned. If you like, feel free to assume the worst, because at least some of the time, you won’t be far from the truth there.

All fiction can do in a best-case scenario for capturing love and romance is to try to mirror reality. The escapist romance novels, TV shows, and movies are more or less fantasy. People are attracted to them because, like any other instances of fantasy, they offer something no one can have in reality.

I think it’s easy for consumers to confuse storybook, fairytale romances found in various products, with what real people experience in their lives. And even most so-called reality disclosures are clearly scripted, arranged, and produced to enhance and maximize marketing appeal.

The less we idealize love and romance, the better our chance is of seeing it for what it really is — in all its overwhelming beauty, and mundane, human folly.

Thanks for reading! I am a writer and musician. I have an MFA in Creative Writing. You can subscribe to my stories here or sign up as a Medium member using the below referral link. Your membership fees will directly support me and other writers on the platform.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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