If ‘love’ was ‘love’

Article by Ninoscha Mendosa

The complicated simplicity behind ‘love’

Have you ever thought about what love would be without the influence of the media? Instinctively, you would have pointed out how love was more significant, sincere, and genuine 'back in the day'. And as a hopeless romantic living in a generation where 'love' was Vin Diesel in 'Fast and Furious', I couldn't have agreed more.

Social media has enhanced communication in different ways. Still, it has started the lust-driven idea of love, teaching youths that the one and the only way to love is to have sex; to surrender your body to them, as if it were a sacrifice to feed on the singularity of love that prominently exists today. In fact, according to Havas, a research group in New York, almost 1 in 3 millennials say images on the Internet have influenced how they think about sex and how they believe it is a vital aspect of a relationship.

Now, clearly, not all youths believe that, and I'm a part of that minority. You see, as cliché and traditional it may sound, 'love' was simply 'love' back in the day.

In our generation, where media is highly praised and recognized, we subconsciously allow media to mold our expectations of love, we allow them to steal our vulnerabilities. It is a part of human nature, to envision our abilities and capabilities to love because as individuals who believe and know that they are minor in such a vast galaxy, we long to love and to be loved.

Our desire does not change, but our intentions do. You see, these days, our love is fueled by adrenaline, by thrill, by instant caffeinated images we overdose ourselves with. Movies, TV shows, and even the ordinary people we walk with are influenced by westernized culture.

Nice girl, bad boy, perfect. Why? Adrenaline. Bad girl, nice boy; perfect. Why? Experience. Girl, boy, perfect. Why? Status. And that's what love is about now, it isn't 'alive' nor does it involve 'sincerity' anymore, because before the media, love wasn't the tallest boy in class, love wasn't the shiny basketball player, nor was love the skinny skater boy with veiny hands.

Love was- love. Love was the deafening zoo that lived within your stomach. Love was the improvisation of priorities; 'love' was simply, and most fundamentally, 'love'.

My mother once told me that ''love was nothing till it involved sacrifice''. So tell me, was it a sacrifice to bury her beneath your shadow, convincing her it was reasonable to follow you all around? Was it a sacrifice to 'tease' her body, enflaming her insecurities that you never bothered to extinguish? Was it a sacrifice to kiss another's mouth with the same tongue you used to tell her you loved her?

My mother once told me that ''love was nothing till it involved sacrifice''. So wake me up when the slang 'ily' message was a sacrifice, because only then will I love in this generation, convincing myself that 'love' was finally 'love'.