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Feb. 10th, 2020 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
between_time_and_42So Valentine's Day is coming up, and I've been thinking, as I often do, about how meaningless it is when one has no interest in dating/romance. And how ridiculous it is not only that romantic love is so highly valued on that day, but also the idea that there's a holiday specifically for expressing love in general. It's always felt to me that we're supposed to wait 364 days to tell others how we feel about them, and then never mention it again for the rest of the year. Which is just stupid. You should always tell others that you love them, whenever you're moved to express the emotion, because you don't know what could happen. (Interesting note, a test I once took about love languages said that mine is "affirmations." Which checks out to me. It's so important to verbally affirm to another person how much you care about them.)
Forgive me for treading ground I've already trampled over many times, but. If I express my apathy towards holidays like Valentine's Day, many people assume that I'm salty or sad because I'm single. And this is exactly the problem, I feel. People shouldn't be made to feel sad because they're not involved in a romantic relationship, or because they have no way to express the love they do feel. I'm tired of the concept of "being single" being something to avoid. I don't think of myself as "single." I'm just... me, a person, existing without a romantic partner. It just makes it sounds like it's something everyone inherently wants, or worse, NEEDS. I'm not here for that. And I feel like positive responses to that- like "good for you, you don't need a man!" or "that's good, you're focusing on yourself and your career before a relationship"- can be reductive (I think I'm using that word correctly?). I'd rather just... not talk about something that's irrelevant to my life, at all. It's not some kind of radical feminist statement or form of self-care, it's literally just me existing the way I always have, and finding no reason to change that.
I found a quote recently by a musician named Moses Sumney, who released a concept album about aromanticism called... Aromanticism. I should note that I haven't listened to it so I can't wholeheartedly endorse it (and I should note, despite everything I might have said about not being interested in romance, I don't THINK I'm aromantic, because I have felt romantic attraction in the past, but I don't want to get too into that). But Sumney had some interesting things to say about love (or lack of it) as a political statement, which I wanted to reproduce here:
"Saying the words 'the world needs more love'- using those words as a political device to imply that love all round is going to produce equality- is ignorant and unrealistic. The problem with the world is not that people who are different don't have enough 'love' for each other. The problem is that the people with power insist on using it, and maintaining it for themselves. Ultimately, when people say 'we need more love,' what they are telling oppressed people is that they need to love the person that's killing them. And what do they have to gain from that? A clear conscience? Some promise that in the afterlife, after they've been murdered by the people taking resources from them, that they'll go to heaven because they have warmth in their hearts?"
I don't have any problem with loving each other, romantically or otherwise. But I don't think it's necessarily something that should always be emphasized, is the thing.
Forgive me for treading ground I've already trampled over many times, but. If I express my apathy towards holidays like Valentine's Day, many people assume that I'm salty or sad because I'm single. And this is exactly the problem, I feel. People shouldn't be made to feel sad because they're not involved in a romantic relationship, or because they have no way to express the love they do feel. I'm tired of the concept of "being single" being something to avoid. I don't think of myself as "single." I'm just... me, a person, existing without a romantic partner. It just makes it sounds like it's something everyone inherently wants, or worse, NEEDS. I'm not here for that. And I feel like positive responses to that- like "good for you, you don't need a man!" or "that's good, you're focusing on yourself and your career before a relationship"- can be reductive (I think I'm using that word correctly?). I'd rather just... not talk about something that's irrelevant to my life, at all. It's not some kind of radical feminist statement or form of self-care, it's literally just me existing the way I always have, and finding no reason to change that.
I found a quote recently by a musician named Moses Sumney, who released a concept album about aromanticism called... Aromanticism. I should note that I haven't listened to it so I can't wholeheartedly endorse it (and I should note, despite everything I might have said about not being interested in romance, I don't THINK I'm aromantic, because I have felt romantic attraction in the past, but I don't want to get too into that). But Sumney had some interesting things to say about love (or lack of it) as a political statement, which I wanted to reproduce here:
"Saying the words 'the world needs more love'- using those words as a political device to imply that love all round is going to produce equality- is ignorant and unrealistic. The problem with the world is not that people who are different don't have enough 'love' for each other. The problem is that the people with power insist on using it, and maintaining it for themselves. Ultimately, when people say 'we need more love,' what they are telling oppressed people is that they need to love the person that's killing them. And what do they have to gain from that? A clear conscience? Some promise that in the afterlife, after they've been murdered by the people taking resources from them, that they'll go to heaven because they have warmth in their hearts?"
I don't have any problem with loving each other, romantically or otherwise. But I don't think it's necessarily something that should always be emphasized, is the thing.
