Loving someone is nice. Some might even say great. But—and this is a cliche—stories often misrepresent love to us. And yet, here are my two cliches—er, pennies.
Stories attack our most vulnerable, suggestable state of absorption and relaxation. When we are done with a story, perhaps without our knowledge or consent, we have altered our brain and left ourselves open to specious arguments of emotion and half truths. I don’t believe this is done intentionally; instead, the error comes in the nature of our own desire for clarity, novelty, and excitement.
Clarity. We love this. From heuristics—shortcuts for our brain—to binary thinking, to pattern recognition, our brain’s hunt for clarity. But in a story, we like clarity for its end and obstruction, for its antithesis: mystery. We like watching things get cleaned. And unfortunately, that comes with shading love and relationships in many layers of unhealthy mystique: love is not filled with the confusion that makes an engaging story. So what happens when we expect mystery? What happens when there is none? When every day we learn more and more of the person until we feel we know everything?
Novelty. You can do a little test on newborns: introduce a new item and watch them stare. While they are watching it, introduce a second new item, and watch as they switch, and stare again at the newest item. Given the chance to engage with any of the two items, a new item will usually take their attention at a rate higher than chance. And adults are no different: only more complicated since we can move more than our eyes. It is this interest in new things that helps us explore and expand our knowledge. We want new, different objects; stories satisfy this desire by showing us experiences we’ve never had—and will often never have due to expensive thresholds, be it time, money, or bravery. So what happens when our love, our relationships, don’t match that novelty? When we can’t do all the great activities we see our favorite characters do? When our partner is no longer new?
Excitement. We want our heart to pump, to break, to stop. Excitement is the dog-treat of our brains. If we get excited, we are more likely to do the stuff that is good for us, like living life with purpose and enjoyment. But most of our endogenous drug-induced excitement isn’t found in the actual activity, but rather in the feeling right before the action: the anticipation. And once again, stories thrive on this truth. They feed on it. They hold back the kiss. They put up the obstacles…on purpose. And when it pays off, it usually ends our enjoyment. Good-bye show. Good-day new almost lovers. So what happens when we no longer anticipate things like “do they love me?” Or “what do they think of…?” What happens when we can finish their sentences?
Stories take the clarity, the novelty, and the excitement that our brains crave to create a picture ideal for capturing our attention and holding it; however, it is those same three concepts that lead our expectations of relationships and love astray. We want mystery, we want new, we want thrill, but what we get is familiarity. We want grand gestures and we get chores. We want flashbulb memories and we get dishes. But that’s what love is and why you’ll rarely see it in a story. It’s not that grand, flashy conflict-driven drama full of anticipation, novelty, and mystery: it’s a best friend and consistency.
Don’t be fooled by a good story; be grateful for a good person,
Love,
~K
K 