This Modern Love

By Fern Ritchie

This modern love, this modern love. What is there not to love about modern love? You meet someone online, awkward talking stages lead to meeting, to dating, to saying ‘I love you’ too fast. You exchange cards, manufactured ones that are received by hundreds of other people. You give chocolates, in a little box that will be thrown away and flowers, flowers that wilt and die before your eyes. Just like your relationship as you spend more time scrolling than speaking. ‘I love you’ turns into ‘love you’ as it fades away and ends in heartbreak or happiness. This is the sad reality of modern love.

This modern love is a reference to a song by an English band, IDLES, which is called Love Song. It’s a sarcastic ode to the strange customs of modern love shown throughout their short spiky lyrics. The shouting of “look at this card I bought you. It says I love you” is an example of this, as if buying a card that says you love someone means you truly do. There’s many of these ‘alternative’ love songs going about at the moment, written by those who are fed up of love being something you buy or use to up your social status in a society that cares too much about what others think. ‘Strangers’ by Sigrid is about how love isn’t like its shown in the movies and how people are ‘falling head over heels for something that ain’t real’ by trying to live up to the high expectations films and television shows give to young couples.

This modern love is fuelled by perfection, those high expectations from the books we read, films we watch. Nobody is perfect, nobody can be perfect. That’s the truth. As Sam Fender said, everybody just wants to be plastic action men and Poundshop Kardashians. Constantly trying so hard to keep the mask from falling off, revealing the imaginary ugliness underneath. They say once it gets into the tabloids it’s done for, the commercialisation of a fun idea. They steal it, suck all the life out of it, pocket the money and leave it robbed and dead. The skeleton of what it originally was. Valentine’s Day is a fun idea. Spend the day with your significant other, let them know much you love and appreciate them. At least, that’s what it’s supposed to be. In reality it’s just a big moneymaking scam, exploiting human emotion for profit. This isn’t a new way of thinking either. In 1993 Carol Ann Duffy published a poetry collection which included the poem Valentine, where the writer gifts their partner an onion. Not a red rose or a satin heart. It shows them discarding traditional and overused representations of love and instead gifting a vegetable. The object itself isn’t what you should focus on. To the partner what the object is doesn’t matter, it’s the thought behind it and that’s what you need to realise. You need to show you truly care and love them.

This modern love still has hope though, especially in times like these where physical intimacy just can’t happen. People are being creative, finding new, different, unique ways to show they care. From quiz nights on zoom to facetime date nights to handmade baskets full of various treats being delivered to doors. We currently find ourselves asking where did all the love go? Truth is the love didn’t go anywhere. We just have to break free of the commercialised normality we’re comfortably boxed into at the moment. Gift onions! Well, maybe not that far, but at least give them a call and check in. Modern love is all around us, you’ve just got to find it.