#37 - Love Isn't Like The Movies, Why Happily Ever After Isn't Reality

Hello and welcome to The Single Girls Guide to Life, your weekly guide to single life living in your 20s and 30s. I'm Chantelle the Coach, a quarter-life and confidence coach that helps women come together find friendships and to embrace the single life of ours and this podcast talks about a variety of topics whether it's dating and relationships, love, being single, doing things on your own, having the confidence to spend time with yourself, and finding self-love. It covers a whole load of topics and today's topic in fact continues one that started a while back back all the way to episode number five where i titled that at the time "What Is Love? (Part 1)" knowing that there would be another opportunity and a need to explore this in more depth and whilst this episode is not called "What Is Love? (Part 2) it's called the love you see in the movies isn't real and we're gonna explore that a little bit more it extends on this idea of questioning what love really is and maybe it is a kind of part two but it's not quite called that since then and reading so many books not on necessarily love or not just on relationships but on a whole host of things you notice patterns over time of what's happening and it's the same as a lot of things you the minute you try to find something out you end up

Oh, the minute you try to find something out you end up asking more questions than you were originally ever planning to so i'm at a point with this idea we previously spoke about a model around the triangular theory of love, Sternberg's triangular theory of love, which you can listen to on episode five but I also have started to question the idea of attachment and for those that listened back to episode 34 attachment styles was discussed but that's something that I've been aware of for a long time just haven't done an episode on it if you've been on tik tok you know that I refer to it quite often and I wonder about the difference between love versus attachment versus feelings versus choice or love as attachment feelings or choice, or what combination.

 And it perplexes me and i think the reason for this episode is it brings me back to all of the films that we watch in our lives... I was a classic teenager that absolutely loved Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.  Like, that was a great film. I hadn't actually read the books but I was completely in love with Robbie (who wasn't at the time?!) and films like that were what me and my friends spoke about. It's what we were watching. And there are other films like Twilight in there as well and you have all these representations of love and what it looks like. 

However when we're watching these films we are believing in the romance we're believing in the fairy tale. We love a Disney film, big fan of Disney, but there is something to be said about the love that's represented and the way that we interpret what relationships look like and how frequently we are told or it is implied that we should be looking to be with someone and how we have to strive for that. And we have to work for that like the whole idea of Georgia trying to be with Robbie in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is that he was with the complete wrong girl (obviously) and that he eventually changed all that for Georgia. However life is 1. not so simple, and 2. doesn't work on logic particularly with love and relationships, particularly in a scenario where he was with the most popular girl there could be and the way that to some degree Georgia played the cool girl. 

Last bit, the "cool girl" concept was discussed in the podcast recording to I went the other week. It was the Alonement podcast recording by Francesca Spectre and Olivia Petter was one of the guests on there who is the author of Millennial Love and within the book and both within this conversation they spoke about the cool girl concept realistically. In Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, she adores Robbie, she has some infatuation with him arguably, but I don't particularly remember that she messages him incessantly and and goes into that. She plays it very cool with him at times despite the fact that he is with someone else - which you could see as respectful as well but you know that nonchalant, i don't mind, i don't care aspect definitely is looking in that and things don't work like they do in films. 

How many films can you think of where the main female character doesn't end up with the person that she's meant meant to be with or the person that has been the kind of main focus of the film. Even with Bridget Jones (which is another previous episode then we've had a little look at the lessons from Bridget Jones) even within that obviously there's a choice between the two and the difficulty and the challenge that she has there but there is an ending to it don't get me wrong we have subsequent films that show different things happening and the moving through of life but we are stuck sometimes with this single narrative, particularly in romance films, because that's what they're about. Where the end is some sort of union of the people that were trying to be together within that and finding that love, and it has that scene that's all a bit magical with a kiss or something, or a marriage if not, and there's the end. 

And it doesn't then continue necessarily to what love really is and what relationships are really like and we can build everything up into a really high level of expectation. That doesn't mean that you should compromise your standards. We should have a vision for what we see in our life but we should also be realistic about that of what one person can be there for us and do. Esther Perel talks about this concept as to how we now focus on this one person being absolutely everything in our life when previously we had tribes we had communities and yes, we may have had partners within those but there were so many other people that served their purpose within the kind of network that was built around you and so it's making sure that we know the difference between a story, a fantasy, and a really really high ideal down to the reality of what life is.

All films are some sort of escape, some sort of creation, imagination and they're lovely but we have to remember that we live in a real world a world where just because you're attractive to someone doesn't mean that you're going to end up together, even if that's the way it seems in the films. "They're just so well matched". 

There are sometimes situations that mean that whilst people click personality wise their values are different; say someone wants to settle down and have a family and another wants to go travel and see the world if those are the two priorities of two people that get along so very well they're not necessarily going to mesh together you have to be at the same point or be prepared to be at the same point as someone else as well as having some interest in one another, have some overlap of interests, or conversation to be able to enjoy time together, and to have the chemistry that you're looking for as well, and love is so complex. 

Whilst I always suggest that when we're on dating apps and you're trying to find a relationship or love that you increase your odds by using it in a numbers game sense making sure that you cover that it is important to remember that there is a whole host of factors that play into it which ultimately means that there's luck involved too. 

Just because you play the numbers game does not mean that you will find a partner that way, you're just increasing your odds of that, you're increasing the opportunities within that and therefore generating some potential luck. But that doesn't mean it's going to fall at your door.

When we go back to films as well there are some really good examples of love in films or at least parts of them so if we go back to Twilight we take Bella and Edward who ultimately that's a really clear anxious-avoidant example of a relationship. The same comes for Anna and Christian Grey in 50 Shades of Grey, the avoidant male in this case and the more anxious female in these. And it's useful to see those examples and love has elements that are like these but it doesn't mean that all of the responses were the most healthy or secure, they weren't the ones necessarily developing it in the right way and if you know you have an insecure attachment style then that needs addressing and whilst it could be dealt with through the help of relationships. It is also something that needs outside support too making sure that you're aware of it and not relying on that one single person. 

There is very much this single person to follow and to identify and this idea of coming together to be completed and to be together forever life is a lot messier than the films make out and yes there's resistance in both those films to those people getting together and being together in the longer term but actually the fact that they end up and everything seems fairly idyllic, and yes they have challenges but as a pair as opposed to the relationship having challenges, is interesting.

We have cycles in relationship and the standards we put on our relationships based on films such as being together forever means that we then associate failure when we aren't with that person, that we entered a relationship with forever. 

Now that was one of the most difficult things that I had to experience or move through, when I wanted to initiate a divorce. Because it's marriage and it's meant to be this now we know roughly half of marriages end in divorce now so it's not necessarily the truth there are plenty of people that choose that where they've got married and they need to separate and let's not forget all of the people that are in relationships, whether that's short or long term, don't get married, so that's to some degree undocumented. Of course, people can be together for four, five, six years and then separate. They may as well, in some regards, have been married because of the length of time and we know some people get married after six months to a year and some people wait 10 years, or never get married, so we've got this documented 50 figure of marriages but i'm sure that most people entered relationships thinking that they would last a good length of time and maybe applied in their minds this forever principle this projection and forever only lasts until forever runs out.

Forever is a concept but life changes. "Forever" holds on to this idea that you can be together forever and i think there are possibilities i think there are times where that happens but you have to be moving in life at a roughly similar rate and in a roughly similar direction take the maths example right now. In an airplane, when you're traveling in an airplane if the bearing of the airplane is one degree off it makes no difference in a very short distance, but you keep traveling at a one degree difference over time and where the plane was meant to be headed is completely off, if you're traveling that far and for that long. And so, if you put that in the context of relationships, if you're even one degree out and you don't keep looking to check that you need to come back together every now, and then to check what the course of the path is, then you're going to find that you end up just diverging the whole time.

A one degree divergence over time can lead massively to you ending up in different places. 

We don't get to see some of that in the films we don't get to see the rawness of relationships and there are little scenes we get such as in The Breakup, the scene with Jennifer Aniston where she says it's not about the flowers it's not about this it's doing something for someone else without being asked it's not because I did this, you did that, it is more than that. 

And so actually looking at what love really is is difficult and it's complex. I don't think there's going to be an answer to what it is. I think some people say that they know but coming back to the original idea around is love attachment, feelings, hormones, what is it? 

I was reading a book in preparation and research for this it's called "How to Find Love" by the School of Life and there was one little quote in it that made me go yeah that's definitely right. 

It says "raw instinct alone cannot be judged an especially reliable method of locating the right partner" and they were referring to divorce statistic, in that the love we see in films can often be determined or shown through lust, through the initial excitement of a relationship, through the attraction, through the connection and when you're in that scenario and you feel that and you have those butterflies and excitement it's good to have positive feelings about someone of course and you want that enthusiasm, but the kind of nail in the coffin for me is that at that point unless you have met this person and have prior communication or a prior existing relationship with them, even if it's platoni,c then if you don't have that... you love the idea of them.

And that can be based on just that one experience you're having of them, of that chance meeting, or that first date. You don't know that person for a relationship so whilst those hormones that are being set off are great, and I've experienced them spoken about them on TikTok,  and they can lead to some really lovely experiences they're not necessarily the best thing to indicate a longer-term relationship. 

They can be part of it, it can happen, but i don't think that's an ultimate indicator. This is a long game, love is not a short term game, and it probably comes back to infinite games and and finite games which Simon Sinek talks about, mostly from a business perspective or a life perspective, but i think love has to be an infinite game. 

Because there are no rules, any player can start playing whenever, they can change the rules and there's an infinite number of players within that. 

I'll expand on that some time but that's the general idea is that there is no one way to win. Because if you see the idea of finding someone then getting married as the way to win then you've got it wrong because your relationship doesn't end there. It doesn't stop being a relationship.

A relationship is something to be maintained over time, for such a long period of time potentially, and you have to keep judging it every momen,t is this partnership working, is it there, and so love isn't and can't be just that lust. 

We then look at attachment. Attachment isn't wrong to have. If you are avoidant there is a good reason to have a sense of independence, if you are more anxiously attached it's lovely to feel like someone needs you but if we get to a point within relationships where the love is fear-based then that can't be love. Love is not, to me and from what i've read, it's not based on fear. 

It's meant to be based on positive feelings and emotions, not worry and stress that someone can't be there for you and can't meet some of your needs.

Now there's a balance - one person cannot meet all of our needs, however if you're so attached to someone that you fear losing someone, because we fear losing lots of situations, we fear losing our job, losing our housing, losing our money, losing our friends, losing our relationship ,and i don't think it's wrong to ever fear that because it comes from the unknown, it comes from the fact that it would shift, that's normal, especially during a breakup. 

You grieve the loss of things. But to be on edge all the time that it it could end or they might not like you or it means that you're not good enough and it's all the things that it feeds later, the fear and the negativity, that doesn't feel like love to me and if that's coming up I would suggest exploring that further in whichever way seems appropriate to you; journaling, meditation, therapy, counselling, talking to friends.

What love is on the whole in my eyes is still to be determined exactly. In the middle of Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love it's Consummate love which is what so many people want with the factors of intimacy, passion, and commitment. 

Ithink love and he describes them they all exist. The problem with the films is that it's the infatuous love that often gets shown because someone really likes someone and there seems to be a click but they're not really showing that commitment yet and apparently it just shifts from infatuous love to consummate love all of a sudden, and apparently we leave it at that. 

That's where it is, that's where it ends. They're together. We see lots of elements of romantic love where there's a passion in the intimacy but not necessarily that commitment and sometimes there is. And it also means that we seem to think that's the only love that matters, it's the only love that counts. 

But that's not true - there are more forms of love based on that triangle that show that we can have love and we have a lot of love in our lives if we pay attention to it. Just because you aren't being intimate with someone physically doesn't mean that you aren't experiencing physical love through hugs, it doesn't mean that you aren't experiencing emotional intimacy from the people that listen to you and are there for you, and I know that you can crave the elements of some of those forms of love, I completely appreciate that, but they're not the only forms of love and what love really is is probably an amalgamation of so many things. 

It's lovely to have that experience those butterflies but every feeling and experience positive or negative is temporary doesn't last forever all feelings of love kind of move through. They ebb and they flow ,the bit we get wrong is that we think it must last all the time. The feeling and the relationship too. But if we started to accept that there's gonna be more than one person for you out there and there's going to be more than one experience you should go through in your life, if we could accept that feelings of love change, they take different forms and that we don't have to get them from only romantic partners

And if we could remember that things don't always last forever, they don't have to to have been valuable and even great in our lives but remembering that the reality of life as complex human beings means that this is not a plus b equals c then maybe we would find the idea of relationships and love a little bit easier. 

Maybe we would be a little less pressured on ourselves to find someone a little bit less stressed about making sure that we don't leave it too late and I get the biology clock argument for those that want families in that sense there is a different aspect to consider there but the idea of chasing love because we're so scared we won't get it, won't get that one single type, and instead taking a step back and seeing all the different forms of love. 

It's useful to just take a step back. 

And so this continues the conversation of what is love. I still stick with the fact that it's so complex you'd never be able to sum it up in one kind of line. 

I know that it's not all about us and it's about others, I've heard many a time too, which I haven't explored so much today... but making sure that we don't look at films and say "that's what i've got to have". M stakes are so high and the chances of all of those things coming together, they happen of course, but sometimes we have to apply a realistic expectation of what we're looking for and seeing every relationship for what it is and appreciating that, even if it doesn't lead to a "happily ever after".

So have a little think, where do you get certain elements of love in your life, where might you have looked at love in a slightly dreamy and romanticized way, and how can you adjust your views on love your views and expectations on relationships to make sure that you're setting the bar at the right height for you and encouraging love into your life rather than pushing it away because it doesn't reach and meet that perfection that you see and that passioned struggle that we see in all those films when the girl finally gets the guy scenario? 

I hope that's giving you something to think about this week and to reflect on. I'd love to hear your thoughts on love because it is complex.

As I've said a hundred times apparently on this podcast episode, you can be a part of the single life be like community where we would discuss things like this in even more detail there's the opportunity on our threads it is a place for single people to come together be single and share their single struggles, embrace their single opportunities, get together and realise that they can be part of a single community, a place to make friends and a place to belong.

It's an online forum there are opportunities to then meet on Zoom and then you get to connect with other people which could then lead to meeting up in real life on your own accord, as well as other events that we put on in between there, so if you want to be part of the single life be like community and extend these kinds of conversations then you can head to the description and join in. 

It would be fantastic to see even more of you single people there to enjoy it embrace it it is a growing community. There are members it is early days but that's what makes it so pure and beautiful that you'd be one of the first and you'd be getting in to that as we start and as we shape and grow, until next time everybody keep thriving.