The Romantic Love

The Romantic Love
Our understanding of love and beauty differs largely depending on our culture and the environment we live in. This premise has been underscored by Barbara Fredrickson, a renowned author, and professor of psychology, in her book Love 2.0: How our supreme emotion affects everything we feel, think, do, and become that was published in 2013. In the critically acclaimed book, she argues against the conventional idea of love as an intimate connection between people. Instead, she promotes the idea of love being a mental connection between individuals. Her argument goes again the cultural grain that only acknowledges love as a physical connection between people. Similarly, Jia Tolentino’s book Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion that was published in 2020 challenges our traditional understanding of beauty. In the book, Jia discusses how social norms influence self-perception and how individuals choose their partners based on outward traits. Both Barbara Fredrickson and Jia Tolentino explore and challenge traditional perceptions of the concepts of love and beauty and how culture influences people's choices when it comes to finding partners and taking care of themselves and their body image. Traditionally, society establishes the social norms that determine love and beauty in both men and women. It promotes the notion that having a perfect body attracts the admiration and approval of others. A perfect body is often portrayed as essential in finding a romantic partner, having good health, developing self-confidence, achieving fame and popularity, and landing a dream job. Therefore, a perfect body is seen as the key to having a good life. For women, this ideal or ideal body is perceived as a thin, supermodel, waif look with an almost impossible voluptuous figure. Men, on the other hand, are encouraged to have muscular bodies to be considered perfect. These perceptions of the perfect body have been reinforced through mass media, advertising, and more prominently on social media. These societal standards and norms of beauty, love, and relationships that revolve around the concept of the perfect body have a negative impact on the emotional, physical, and mental health of many people.
I agree with Barbara Fredrickson’s idea that love is purely a scientific physical need beyond people's emotional bonds. Barbara Fredrickson’s definition of love focuses on having a mental connection rather than a physical connection with others. Thus, it is true that for one to realize true love, it is necessary to "set aside the take on love your family might have offered you" and to suspend the "view of love as a special bond or relationship," as Barbara Fredrickson argues. This assertion challenges the traditional understanding of love that focuses on physical attraction and encourages people to strive toward having perfect bodies. The perfect body image is considered the ideal standard of beauty and the key to finding love. Love, on the other hand, is believed to thrive through relationship bonds. This societal understanding of beauty and love limits beauty only to body image and love to relationships. I believe that beauty and love are broad concepts that need not be confined to social norms. For example, one does not need to have the perfect body, as it were, to be considered beautiful. Beauty is something that one can cultivate through their understanding of their bodies, their sense of fashion, beliefs, and other factors. Therefore, beauty is not determined by external factors but rather how one perceives themselves. In the same way, love cannot be confined to relationships or bonds that exist between people.
When it comes to love, people make their decisions based on their bodies and their minds as well. This is because love is experienced in both the physical and the mental states of connection. While the body desires affection, closeness, intimacy, and love, the mind desires security and commitment in a relationship. However, in most instances, bodily needs can overpower the mind and cloud one's ability to think properly, thereby tricking one's mind into believing something else. For example, when one is in a romantic relationship in which she or he feels loved because of the intimacy, closeness, and sex, they could become comfortable in the relationship and overlook some issues such as violence that can threaten their mental need for security and commitment. Similarly, when one is always given gifts and treated well with the person they love, they tend to believe that they cannot receive better love in another person. As a result, they end up settling for their physical needs instead of finding someone who can reassure them of their mental needs.
Both Tolentino and Fredrickson provide valuable insights on understanding beauty and love. From their explanations, societal norms can be seen as a barrier to critical thinking when i...