Great Expectations: How the Media We Consume Affects Our Perception of Love
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Everyone has heard the age old adage “you are what you eat.” Even if you eat enough carrots and develop an orange hue to your skin due to the carotenemia caused by an excess amount of beta-carotene consumed, you are still not a carrot.
Nonetheless, I am a firm believer of “you are what you watch, read and listen to.” Our perceptions are reflections of the media we consume. It heavily influences our expectations– especially in regards to relationships.
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I remember during the lockdown, my older sister and I were sitting and talking about our favorite romantic media. She began reciting movies like “The Proposal,” “Notting Hill” and “The Notebook.” All of them came with a similar sentiment: they find their person, fall in love and live happily ever after. I was struck by the stark contrast between her choices and my own. I listed stories like “La La Land” and “Normal People”. These are stories where (spoiler alert) they don't end up together, or it took them an ungodly amount of time to get together, and once they did, some external factor got in the way. I appreciate the right person, wrong time theme. It leaves me unsatisfied and makes me feel something that no happy ending ever could.
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My family has always joked that my sister will end up with a husband, kids and white picket fence life, and that I will be the fun aunt that lives in her basement.
This realization of our contrasting media consumption made it feel all too real. Did my choices of tragic media really mean that my destiny is to be the girl before the one or that something will always come in the way of me finding my happily ever after?
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Here is what I realized: the media we choose may reflect our expectations, but it does not reflect our realities or predict our future. Real people cannot compare to characters, they’re more complex. Many of us are taught to fall in love with the idea of love rather than people themselves, and romantic media only warps our standards further. Although I may not be as much of a hopeless romantic as my sister and prefer different media to consume, it's not written in the stars that I will end up alone. We have the power to define what we want, and no matter the stories we choose to read, watch or listen to, we are not destined to reflect them.
Strike Out,
Blake Witmer
Editor: Gianna Rodriguez
Athens