I stand awkwardly at the entrance of the hall. The lights are dim and the DJ switches the song to Beauty And The Beast. He approaches me for the first time, stretches out his hand and asks me for a dance. And that was the beginning of our relationship…
That was what I’d daydreamed about when I was younger. You can’t blame me, it’s what I watched in movies and dramas!
I grew up watching lots of Thai drama with cliché and popular romance tropes; Two people from very different worlds (often one very rich and another very poor) falling in love despite all odds, a love triangle with the protagonist being torn between two equally amazing lovers, and even arch-enemies-turned-lovers plot, and so much more.
Every time I watch scenes like that, my heart skips a beat and I squeal a little inside. Isn’t it such a nice feeling to be in love?
Movies and shows are often one of the earliest influences that shape our understanding of love. As children, we gather information about the world through observing and inferring through what we watch.
I came across a YouTube Short comparing how romance is portrayed in Korean and Japanese dramas. The video showed clips from popular dramas in both countries:
K-drama: 8th episode, the main characters exchange a romantic moment and kiss for the first time under the rain.
J-drama: 1st five minutes of the episode, the main characters profess their love and willingness to die together, fall into the pool together and start making out underwater.
The comments blew up, each one of the commenters sharing their own countries’ romance trope.
I chuckled to myself reading these comments and seeing the number of ‘Likes’ it received as it showed how often dramas overuse romance plots.
It was only when I grew older that I realised how movies tend to focus so much on ‘The Chase’; the longing to be together with someone. Nothing is more romantic than that, right! Especially when the harder it is to get together, the more romantic and desirable the relationship is.
Think about Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and The Notebook. These movies tell us that we need to show grand gestures, do the unimaginable in the name of love or maybe fight passionately with one another before getting into a relationship. Not many movies showed the boring daily part of a relationship after the chase is over.
I guess the unrealistic and incomplete expectation of relationships only surfaced after I ended my first relationship.
Even before the relationship, I found myself gravitating towards ‘couple goals’ videos. There are many couples who put their life on social media and film candidly cute moments. Again, I would daydream about how adorable it would be to make these ‘couple goal’ videos with my boyfriend, with us just playing and fooling around.
I had been single all my life up till Poly Year 3 but there were many unrequited love, missed opportunities, ‘right person, wrong time’ kind of thing. So, when someone came my way, who liked me back too, I was over the moon. Finally, my chance at love!
The relationship started on a high note. To a certain extent, I felt like the main character in a movie—I couldn’t believe that he would take a liking to me. It was as though we were fated to be together like how movies portrayed relationships.
Heart skipping a beat? Check. Squealing at the romantic gestures? Check. I thought to myself, “So this is what it feels like to be in love!”
But what I avoided and should be a yellow flag from the start was how we did not get to know each other as a person better. Time revealed to us that we were very different in our priorities, values and interests.
Eventually, our relationship couldn’t last because it wasn’t built on a strong foundation. After months, the adrenaline and thrill of a new relationship started to wear off and our differences grew to be increasingly jarring. Yet, there was nothing to anchor us.
Sure enough, the tension turned the relationship sour and we parted our ways. However, that relationship changed my entire perspective about love.
The desire for a passionate romance is not inherently bad. I think it’s more about managing expectations and understanding the true meaning of love.
I paid a high price to learn that looks are not everything, it takes more than just chemistry between the couple for a relationship to work, and that loving someone isn’t simply receiving passively but it’s more about the giving.
We may be first attracted to the looks of someone, but a person’s character outlasts good looks.
Having a good chemistry with someone is a great starting point but having the same values and goals in life are much more important.
Many years after my first relationship ended and a handful of unsuccessful attempts at love, I came to know someone through a dating app.
Marcus and Hannah have been together since February 2021.
He wasn’t someone I thought I’d get together with because his profile wasn’t that impressive. We talked for about two weeks and I saw him just as a friend (omg, am I a movie trope?! AHAH). I was quite open to talking to people on the app without getting into any relationship.
But as we met up more often, I grew to like him as he was very thoughtful and sincere.
I’m usually very boy-crazy so I get smitten over someone I like quite easily and get all the butterflies in my stomach whenever I think of them.
Interestingly, this time round, I felt a sense of peace within. Unlike what is typically portrayed in romance dramas, there was nothing dramatic or overly romantic that he did.
For once, I felt that I took my time to get to know someone before falling too deeply and blindly in love.
I always joke with him and friends that he’s so boring—he can eat the same food for weeks, he is happy with his routine, he doesn’t do surprises.
But behind his ‘boring’ personality is a peaceful, stable and dependable man I could count on.
Too often, we want the passion and intensity of a relationship where everything is exciting and they are literally our whole world.
But what happens when life gets in the way? Conflicts and obstacles in every relationship are inevitable. Will you be able to navigate it together with the person? Are they willing to work things through?
With my current boyfriend, we love each other by communicating healthily through listening and compromising. We love each other a lot but our love is not consumed by passion and we give each other space to be ourselves and have our own life apart from each other. Our love is also not characterised by excitement or frequent surprises, yet our consistent patience and support for each other carries us through difficult times.
Love is so different from what I’ve seen in movies.
I stood awkwardly in front of Tea Party at Sixth Avenue; he was running late. He arrived 15 minutes late and said ‘Hi’ for the first time. We talked about our lives and found we were quite similar. No butterflies in my stomach, no heart skipping a beat, just calmness and peace.
And that was the beginning of our relationship.
