I've been going through stuff lately. This should probably be the line I'm remembered by when I die.
I'm a bit dramatic, and I'm always going through some stuff, though if you ask me about it, I probably don't have much to say.
Does this happen to you? Your insides being a constant tangle of ideas and thoughts, all pulling at each other, while your shell is just... plain?
In the book of Interactions 101, I learned to ask and listen. Most of the time, when the questions are asked back at me, I try to get them out of the way as fast as I can. Partly because I feel like whatever I say will sound boring, but mostly because I genuinely don't think I have anything to say at all.
The Worst Person in the World, 2021
Which then makes me wonder... what do I consider an interesting topic of conversation? Not for myself, but the one I believe others will find interesting. And you know what immediately pops into my head? Scanning the conversations I've been in with different people, from different ages, the most basic, stereotypical cliché becomes the answer. I discovered that I apparently believe I'm boring to talk to because I don't talk about relationships or romantic drama.
I pride myself on being someone who's content being single and not having much going on in that department. It has never been a priority in my life. But in my head, when I imagine what I could bring to the table while talking to other people, a small bug climbs onto my shoulder and whispers that if I had someone I could talk about, I'd be more interesting.
Every other subject, therefore, gets thrown into the boring bin, where my brain simply assumes that while I'm talking, the other person has a smile on their face but is inwardly checking their imaginary watch and wondering when on earth I'm going to shut up.
With the people closest to us, it feels like we can talk about almost anything. There's no need for pretense. I could talk to my best friend about a two-hour documentary on seahorses (it hasn't happened... yet), and I know she'd listen and add her own thoughts on the subject. But somehow, when I think about other people, people I feel comfortable with, but perhaps not comfortable enough with, I think twice. This person does NOT want to hear about a two-hour documentary on seahorses. This person wants something more interesting. I should be able to give them something more interesting.
Clueless, 1995
Northamericam sociologist Erving Goffman writes in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life about how, whenever we're around other people, we're constantly giving them information about ourselves, who we are, while also paying attention to how we're being perceived. We present a version of ourselves, the other person interprets it, and between the two, we shape the interaction. This doesn't mean we're fake. We show different sides of ourselves depending on who we're talking to, parents, friends, clients, work colleagues, classmates, etc.
Even more than that, we're constantly, sometimes unconsciously, managing the impression we're making. We read the room. We notice facial expressions. We check whether a joke landed, whether we've been talking for too long, whether the other person seems interested. And we adjust accordingly. These interactions, of course, vary from person to person. I, for example, with an insecure streak and a complicated past, tend to assume I talk for too long, make the conversation about myself, and overthink almost every interaction I have.
This then takes you to deciding if a two-hour documentary about seahorses is actually interesting for the room or deciding whether one seems interesting if they talk about it. We stop having conversations and start trying to figure out how are we going to come across to the people sitting opposite us.
With Goffman, we understand a little more about how we present ourselves to others. But then... why have I internalized the idea that having a romantic life gives someone something more interesting to say than everything else that happens in their life?
There are so many things to talk about. Movies, TV shows, books, friends, family drama, life, philosophy, the whole world. I couldn't even begin to list how many things we can actually talk about with other people. But what I hear about the most, what brings people together and makes them lean in over the table for some reason, are the romantic entanglements we go through in our everyday lives. A friend who's trying to find love, another who's trying to keep it, another who's learning to live without it, another who's still figuring it out, meeting new people, gossiping to us all about their enigmatic rendezvous.
Philospher Elizabeth Brake coined the term amatonormativity. This term describes, in her own words, "the widespread assumption that everyone is better off in an exclusive, romantic, long-term coupled relationship, and that everyone is seeking such a relationship."
We tend to believe that marriage and companionate romantic love have special value over other caring relationships. Of course this comes from your own set of values in life. At the end of the day, we all want to be loved, right? We all crave companionship, being taken care of. Don't those things exist also with family and friends? This belief, and the value we set over romantic love centers this subject in the priority of every individual, even if they're not looking for it, because, at the end of the day, it's the norm. It's what's "normal."
"Amatonormativity prompts the sacrifice of other relationships to romantic love and marriage and relegates friendship and solitudinousness to cultural invisibility." - Elizabeth Brake, Minimizing Marriage (OUP, 2012), Chapter 4.iii
If we're without partner, if we "haven't found one yet", we're most likely to be appointed as lonely, immature or irresponsible. What on earth could be wrong with us if we're this... single, right? Opposed to this idea of a romantic-centered world, psychologist Bella DePaulo suggest that society considers that if we're involved in a relationship or married, then our lives are automatically more complete, mature or significant.
So the romantic subject is a priority in our lives because society pushes us to cater to it. We already know all this. We consume it in everything. I believe no one makes more money than someone who wrote a love ballad that became a classic. Even if you're not into romantic stuff, you'll end up humming it. Sociologist Eva Illouz tells us "romantic love is a cultural practice", something to consume.
The Love Witch, 2016
This takes us to the assumption that romance is somehow easier to turn into a story. Into something to sell to others, something they'll find "interesting." But maybe there's a reason romance lends itself so easily to storytelling.
Illouz writes about romantic love becoming the center of what she calls a collective utopia. In her book, Consuming the Romantic Utopia (I recommend it, honestly. We were given some parts to read for college, and I ended up getting the whole book), Illouz talks about how romance, particularly throughout the twentieth century, became one of those places where people could imagine happiness, fulfillment, freedom, and abundance. Love wasn't just something they experienced privately anymore. Magazines, newspapers, books, advertisements, movies, all these different forms of mass culture helped build and circulate a collective imagination of what a fulfilling life through romantic love could look like.
This topic that ends up occupying so much space in our collective imagination naturally ends up occupying a central place in our conversations too. This ingrained utopia is thrust upon us from the moment we're born. I may question why I believe romance is such a hot topic of conversation, and sometimes I may not even like it. But God, if I don't live by romantic notions.
Only recently have I started branching out into other genres, but I remember a time when I'd only watch something if it had romance in it. I'd only read romance books and consume fanfiction about the same characters falling for each other over and over again in slightly different ways.
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