February 2026 "Films ≠ Love" By: Wyatt Armitage

     Love. This word, four letters long, is meant to be something raw, something real. It is something that everyone dreams of having and looks forward to in their life. At least it's the version that I learned. This version didn't come from real life for me. It came from movies. It was the kind where two people hated each other in the beginning. They slowly fall madly in love until something is exposed when one person leaves, then the other does whatever it takes to win them back. Those are the movies that taught me that love is passionate. Love is something worth fighting for; it's loud and something you can suffer for. The simple word was something shown to me as endless apologies and promises of change, loud grand gestures. The stories I watched every day growing up made me feel and understand that the idea of being loved meant being chosen. It showed that it was the ultimate validation. There's a problem, though; it is something that most people overlook: love in movies is not reality. In the movies, when somber music plays, it gives us the idea that romance is happening, or bad music is played when it's an unhealthy situation. We don't get that in real life. In movies, when there is miscommunication, tension builds, while in real life, miscommunication builds distance. When you're watching a romance movie and one character leaves, most people may think that it shows their care. In reality, it just means they left. What the movies show as passion is just plain exhausting in real life when you're living it.

     As a result, I started to merge the ideas of intensity with the ideas of intimacy. When things in my relationship were calm, I questioned everything, or if there was no conflict, it made me think about whether or not my partner actually cared for me, and whether that idea of passion was even exciting in our relationship. Movies build thoughts on relationships that don't actually exist. They taught me that love should be an emotional rollercoaster. What I mean is that relationships were supposed to be full of highs and lows. In reality, relationships are not built upon climaxes and big dramatic moments, yet they are built on consistency as well as how they treat you on ordinary days, not just how they treat you on more serious/dramatic days. Films have also put this idea in our heads that love is something that must be earned, not just given. We see in these romance movies that characters prove their worth and love through suffering or sacrificing for the other character. They are literally beating themselves up until they get rewarded with affection and acceptance. Films put this narrative in our heads, making it really easy to believe in the idea that love requires endurance instead of mutual care. It leads us to believe that we can blur the lines between devotion and abandoning ourselves. Overall, it puts the idea in our heads that we’re fighting for someone, but we're losing ourselves in the process, and that's a good thing.

     There's a version of love, though, that films very rarely show. It is the love that does not require pain to be earned. It's a version of love that shows up without requiring you to go chasing after it. It's a version that involves people communicating instead of disappearing. It's not loud, it's not explosive or huge. It's a version that does not rely on big grand gestures to prove your worth. Although this version of love never translates well on screen, it's the version that will last for a long time. As I get older, I am starting to unlearn this version of love films have taught me, that the idea of being chosen loudly is not even close to being chosen daily. That this version of love I have been relying on for so long is not real. When someone apologizes, it doesn't mean anything unless they actually change, or that they do not need to hurt people to be meaningful. Real love is not proving your worth through endurance or harm, yet it is about being valued as a person without having to perform like a puppet. Movies are not wrong for how they portray love. I'll admit it. Stories thrive on conflict and drama because that is what people love. What does bother me is when this version of love becomes our main source of what it should look like. That is where this problem arises. It leaves us unprepared for reality; it sets us up to get heartbroken. Films sell us this fantasy that’s amazing to watch, but very incomplete. Maybe love was never meant to look like the movies at all. Maybe it is quiet. It is simple, and although that’s probably going to be the hardest thing to learn, it will be the most honest love story there ever will be.