Love in the Modern Day

 I am a self-proclaimed cynic, if I am nothing else. And one of my most favourite things to be cynical about is love. Specifically romantic love. Love shared by family and friends, that stuff is beautiful. But romantic love? That's painful and temporary and really hasn't done me a lot of good personally. Mind you, there's still plenty of time for someone to come along and change my mind about this, but I have my doubts. Plus, I kind of just want to grow up and be Emily Dickinson.


(I did, at one point, want to grow up to be Liz Lemon but then she went and got married (to a human, not a meatball sub) and ruined that fantasy.)

There is actually only one couple in my group of acquaintances right now that I actively hope will stay together forever. Everyone else, I really couldn't care less. Perhaps this makes me a terrible person/friend. More than likely it just means that I'm lonely and hate other people's happiness. (I've never claimed to be a thoroughly good person.) My sincerest apologies if I hurt anyone's feelings by saying this, but it really shouldn't come as a surprise. The biggest surprise should be that there are actually two people that make me happy when I see them together. This disturbs me greatly.

With that confession out of the way, I'm going to make a sweeping declaration: The Internet has murdered love. Curb stomped it right to the point of cliched oblivion.

Not saying love can't happen. I've seen it before. Hell, I've felt it before (I think. Mostly my regret and frustration has blinded my memory of most of the good feelings. I think I might be a bit bitter.) but the only place that got me was weeks of hysterics and trying to guess that good-for-nothing bastard's Facebook password so I could sabotage him. (I was 16, leave me alone. Did I mention the bitterness?)

So what has the Internet done to love? It's given people this strange notion that they need to broadcast their love to everyone. It's like people need to prove that their love is the best love. Which all blows up in their face when their relationship status goes from "in a relationship" to "single."

The fact is, and I cannot stress this enough, NO ONE cares. Okay, maybe there are a few genuinely good people out there who want other people to be happy. But very few. You see, anyone who is in a relationship and happy will laugh at your "best relationship ever" status because clearly they have the best relationship ever so you're completely deluded, obviously. And anyone who is in a relationship and unhappy will envy you your apparent happiness but proceed to write about how great their relationship is because no one wants to admit their love is failing. And of course, single people hate on anyone in a relationship, regardless of how many "I love being single" captions they put on their selfies.

With that out of the way, I've made a list. (Yay! Lists!) This is a list of the most annoying things people in "love" do on the internet, in no particular order:

• Kissing Photo Shoots. Ugh. UGH. There are very few people in the world that look good while kissing. And it just makes me laugh when you think of like, whoever holding up a phone and being like, "Okay, time to kiss. Oh, just a sec, I'm holding my phone at a weird angle. Ahh, this thing is designed so awkwardly for taking pics with one hand. Okay, are you ready? Wait, fix your hair, you have an alfalfa. Okay, looks good. Ready? *click* Ahh, damn, I missed most of your face. Let's try again." Like, maybe a candid shot at a wedding is acceptable, but taking the pic yourself? Stop it.
• Facebook status: "Doing blah blah blah with the boy." The boy? Which boy? Does he have a name? This seems degrading to me. Do guys write, "the girl?" No, because that sounds like they don't respect her or some feminist nonsense. Don't assume that I know you're talking about your boyfriend. Use names to identify who you're talking about, because that's what names are for. But the worst part I think is the "the." It's like saying, "the dog," or, "the sandwich," or, "the lady at the counter who doesn't know how to order a latte." It just sounds rude and impersonal and a bunch of other stuff. I dunno.
• Random month anniversary announcements. Okay, so these are the monthiversaries that I deem worthy of celebrating: 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 60, continue at intervals of 12 months. See what I'm saying? You can publicly celebrate half years for the first two years but after that, please, puh-lease, keep it to yourself. Because we (we being the single people) don't want to be reminded at monthly intervals that someone as annoying as you has a significant other while we're stuck crying all over our cats and Fritos.
• Declaration (sweeping, at that) that you have the best boyfriend/girlfriend ever! You most likely do not. In fact, everyone is laughing at you because everyone except you knows that your boyfriend is being very suggestive towards other females and therefore is most likely not the best ever. Or something like that.
• Writing a status about going to the gym or something and ending it with "Love you so much Jimbo, you're my soulmate. You make me want to roll my windows down and cruise. <3" The f*** does that have to do with you going to the gym? And 14 other people just quoted that song in the last 25 minutes. Be original.

I recently had an experience where I liked a person. It was disgusting really. Couldn't concentrate on writing. Had a huge lapse in blogging/tweeting which resulted in who knows how many lost Twitter followers. I did not love this person. Not even close. I maybe could have though, eventually, and that's where the disappointment lies. I've since been cured of that nonsense, as you can tell by the almost daily blog posts that I've been pumping out. Cured maybe isn't the right description. It was more like a slap in the face by reality, telling me that love sucks and it's usually not going to work out. But I think I knew that already. 

The thing is, love is the best until it's not. You think everything is great and you'll be together forever and have little babies and then it just doesn't happen. And that's soul-crushing. 

This is basically a crude representation of what I dream about every night.

Really though, is having a guy beg for my affection, shower me with tasty, cheese-covered food gifts, and never talk to another girl again for as long as he lives too much to ask from a mate, seriously? It's like no one wants to work for love anymore. They just want it to be presented to them on a platter, all drizzled in chocolate and ready to cuddle and watch The Breakfast Club with you. (I'm included in this group of lazy lovers, although I'd prefer cheese sauce over chocolate.)

But as I said before, I am a cynic. And more than likely a few of you are reading this and think I'm a jealous idiot. Which is partially true, I won't deny it. But the people who think I'm an idiot are probably also the people who take kissing pics and think that they're going to be with their significant other forever even though they've only known them for five minutes.

Have a nice Post-Valentine's Day Day (notice that I waited to post my love-bashing until AFTER the celebration of love, so as not to be rude. Lol, just kidding, I tweeted a lot of love hating.) and laugh at the following Aziz Ansari quote that I stole from Pinterest. He knows what's up. (He's also ruining the sanctity of my blog with his not bleeped out f-bombs. I'm sorry.)