by Team Medics
Yet another Feb. 14 has passed and, finally, it is the day for us, the heartbroken, the lonely, and those who take pride in their single status. Here are 9 of our favorite lines that show show different sides to the story of single life. Read along, and let us be alone together.
1. Grey areas and expectations, but I’m not the one if we’re honest. (TALK ME DOWN, Troye Sivan)
As the great philosopher Love Marie Ongpauco once said, “We meet people for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.”
2. Two birds on a wire; one tries to fly away, and the other watches him close from that wire. He says he wants to as well, but he is a liar. (Two Birds, Regina Spektor)
Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder whether we even had the same goals and dreams to begin with.
3. “My love keeps growing more passionate and egoistic, while his is waning and waning, and that’s why we’re drifting apart. And there’s no help for it.” (Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy)
Few things are more painful than seeing your relationship fall apart despite your best efforts.
4. At the end of our races he gasped and gave his dazzling smile and I lounged beside him in the water, or put my arm round his shoulders, saying, ‘That was damned close’ but thinking inside ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ (Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library)
A love, even that which is unreciprocated, can beget beautiful moments of such immense affection. But to confess is to risk what already might be something glorious. Perhaps the words are saved for later, perhaps they are never meant to be uttered except in the safety of solitude. The moment is preserved in its unsullied beauty, to then become a memory relished in reminiscence.
5. “We accept the love we think we deserve” (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky)
Love begins with loving yourself.
6. You forfeit all rights to my heart
You forfeit the place in our bed
You’ll sleep in your office instead
With only the memories of when you were mine
I hope that you burn… (“Burn”, Hamilton: An American Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda)
The last lines from Eliza’s heart wrenching song from “Hamilton” that contradicts her earlier professions of love not only makes the audience cry but also drives in the point of how Alexander’s betrayal destroyed their relationship.
7. I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men (Nikola Tesla)
Tesla may not have had a sweetheart, but he cannot deny that he loved the people. So much that he worked hard to share his talents with everyone.
8. “There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.” (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice)
I think we meet a lot of people in our lives whom we seem to think will be the perfect friend/companion/lover, but oftentimes, we end up discovering something about them that we can never really accept (a fatal flaw if you will). The more people of this type we run into, the more we critical we become, the higher are standards of people get, and the easier it is for us to become lonely.
9. ”You love each other. It shows all over you. You glow with it. But you both loved other people before you met each other. You’ve both been married before, just like us. And you probably loved other people
before that too, even. […] And the terrible thing, the
terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, you
might say, is that if something happened to one of us -excuse
me for saying this- but if something happened to one of us
tomorrow, I think the other one, the other person, would
grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party
would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough.
All this, all of this love we’re talking about, it would just be
a memory. Maybe not even a memory.” (Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love)
Suffice it to say that the scariest thing about love is how true to life it is, and how far from perfect real love actually is. There’s disappointment in the thought that love eventually strays away from the overwhelming notions of flowers, chocolates and surprises, and could perhaps even end up becoming underwhelming, to the point that it’s forgettable, replaceable. You love someone until you don’t, and then you move on. And perhaps it stings because everyone has a part of them that knows this to be true.