The worst part about dating is the love songs
I am in my first long-term relationship right now. Context: I have not had a long-term relationship before this my thirty-eighth year because 1) I'm not pretty and don't use makeup to give myself the appearance of pretty, so nobody looks at me, and 2) I am shy and really struggle to make the first approach, which is apparently the thing that happens in this modern dating era.
I've had twenty years of love songs and romance movies, TV shows, and books influencing how I think a romance is supposed to go. How it's supposed to feel. Love at first sight. Sparks and lightning and powerful emotions. True love. Destiny. Fate. Breathless. Madly. Meet-cutes and deep kisses and flowers. All the cliches you can think of.
And I don't have an older sister to learn from her relationships. All of my brothers that are married had their courtship very far away, so I couldn't even watch that. I don't have many long-term friends, so I haven't been able to experience vicarious relationships. So I've really only had the unreality of media to teach me expectations.
I'm finding reality is nothing at all like how media portrays it. It hasn't been a spark that ignited a burning romance with all the grand gestures and big metaphors in the love songs. It's been a long, slow process of coaxing a fire into existence while out in the wilderness with only flint and steel instead of matches or a lighter. Not even flint and steel. With a hand drill and my own hands like Tom Hanks.
It's been 10 months since I matched with my boyfriend on a dating app, and 2 months since we made it official. Not exactly the start to a whirlwind romance, but part of that is he's two states and a seven hour drive south of me. He's also busy with medical school and doesn't have the brain capacity to think of me as much as I would like, so I'm doing most of the emotional lifting right now, texting him good mornings and wishing him good luck on his many tests, mailing him cards to cheer him up, reassuring him that I understand his situation and don't hold the slow communication against him.
We do meet up once or twice a month, he calls roughly once a week on the weekend and sometimes remembers to answer my texts, and while I do most of the work while we're apart, he does most of the work while we are together. I'm sure a lot of women online would have their heads explode with how our relationship is. It's not what I dreamed I would have, but I'm learning to manage my expectations because I'd rather have this abnormal, slow relationship than nothing at all.
Honestly, it makes me hate love songs a bit.
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