Romance: Unrealistic vs Real

By: Yulianna Duran

Do you ever feel sad in your relationship? You feel like you're not getting the attention you've seen others receive?

Well, let me tell you that those are unrealistic expectations!

What do I mean?

Movies, books, etc. have shown us such extreme acts of love that tend to not be normal and skewed our perception of love .

We've been viewing unrealistic acts of love since we were little kids! For example, through Disney movies such as The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, etc. and we also keep viewing them through our teenage years through the Titanic, Gossip Girl, The Notebook, etc. This has conditioned our brains to think catching someone in the airport before they leave or showering our significant other's room with roses is completely normal when it's not!

Unrealistic expectations is when one has a completely unfactual perception of things.

It's no secret that the media loves (no pun intended) to try and control our perspectives and creating false realities is a solid way to go. Anything to do with love- Romance, romantic comedies- is aimed to alter our lives. It's easy to relate to relationships we see in shows and movies but having these false standards can lead to toxic, unhappy relationships. They're fake and are written to only show us the beauty's in love. So, when the ugliness of relationships hit, we're not ready for them and conform with toxicity to comply with the love the media has shown us.

If you feel that movies or shows run your love life, click on this link for tips and tricks on detaching from these unrealistic expectations:

How to stop romantic comedies from ruining your love life

Works Cited:

Tran, R. (2021, February 14). Media romances skew real-world relationship standards. UCSD Guardian. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://ucsdguardian.org/2021/02/14/media-romances-skew-real-world-relationship-standards/

Merritt, T. P. (n.d.). How T.V. promotes an unrealistic image of romantic relationships. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://opus.govst.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1373&context=capstones