Modern Love

Subarna Bhattacharjee
Nov 5 · 6 min read

Last weekend, the millennial in me binged watched an 8-episode long series called Modern Love. If you haven’t watched it already, WATCH IT! (but first, read this post) It’s a beautiful show that explores love and relationships in an extremely honest, raw, unfiltered way. The series breaks away from the realm of just portraying the clichéd love between lovers and illustrates heartwarming stories of friendship, self-love, and kindness (towards others and oneself). Since watching the series, I’ve been thinking about love and the way I see it unfold in the world around me.

To backtrack a little, I come from a family of great romances, and I grew up listening to the cheesiest of love stories. Trust me, a few of them could straight up be plots of Bollywood rom-coms! I believed in ‘finding the one’, so going into college, I was certain that I would graduate with my big romance. However, things didn’t quite end up that way, and I graduated from college Single as a Pringle. Now don’t be disappointed because I did have my cute flings and went on my fair share of dates, but just nothing that could come close to being a ‘serious relationship’. I could just never see any of those growing into a forever kind of a deal. To be honest, I never tried to really push for it to happen either, but like most of my friends, I figured this is something you just walk into. You just fall in love; you don’t force it to happen.

As I became an upperclassman, life only got busier and I found myself focussing more and more on my work, and on nurturing meaningful friendships (that I wanted to last for a lifetime). During college (especially towards the end), that seemed like an extremely fulfilling way of spending time. I found myself surrounded by the best humans a girl can ask for — a mama in the form of a roommate, best friends who showed up at my door with big hugs and pizzas on a bad day (and were always down for spa dates!), girlfriends who would dance it out on Friday nights, teammates and mentors who really helped me grow and realize my potential… this list can just go on and on. Amidst all of this, after a point, I just did not have the emotional bandwidth to accommodate a relationship at that point in my life.

Then, after graduation, I moved to San Francisco and I pretty much carried those habits with me to the West Coast. I immersed myself in work, found a lovely group of friends, and developed new interests (which may or may not have been limited to art, theater, food, and sometimes yoga related events). But that year I also saw a wave of relationship status changes (mostly people getting engaged) on my facebook feed, and I won’t lie, the FOMO hit hard. I felt like perhaps I was missing out on a great life experience. While I did not do much to act upon those feelings, eventually, I did adjust my expectations a bit. I realized that the landscape of romance has really evolved over the past few years, and I couldn’t just hope to fall in love the way my parents did -

  1. As a generation, we have come to exist in our own microcosms and lead somewhat individualistic lives. We are all getting increasingly busier, working 14–15–16 — hour days (working significantly more than our ancestors), which has, in turn, influenced the way we spend our ‘non-working-time’. In their 20’s, my grandparents would end their workdays at 4 pm, but it’s a #win for me whenever I can manage to go to a yoga class or watch an outdoor theater show during the week. And when I do find some ‘free’ time, I am not ashamed to accept that I spend a significant amount of that curled up on a couch, sipping on hot chocolate, stuffing my face with thin mints, and binging a Netflix series. This being the story of many of us, finding love is a chore that most of us simply just don’t have the time or energy for.
  2. Our world exists online. We buy groceries online, order our coffees online, and likewise, meet the love of our lives online. According to two scientists from Stanford and the University of New Mexico, in 2017, about 40% of opposite-sex couples and 65% of same-sex couples met online. Every other “channel of introduction” (introductions through families, meeting at highschool/college/work) has been on a decline, with the one-off chance encounters at bars. And if you look at the data, this trend will probably only rise — as we become busier with our lives, get pickier about the qualities we seek in a partner and spend more time online. What this means is that, unlike the way our parents met, it’s unlikely that we will walk into the loves of our life at a neighborhood cafe.
  3. Lastly, with more than 45% of the world active on social media platforms, we know too much about everyone now. I’d say social media and its power of connecting has been mostly good — I mean, I genuinely appreciate being able to watch what Kim Kardashian has for breakfast every morning — but it has also resulted in so much OVER SHARING! I’ve been guilty of partaking in this practice myself many a time, but wow! the #fomo that this has created can be extremely unhealthy at times. Now that I am approaching mid 20’s, every morning, I wake up to at least 1 Facebook post about my friends getting engaged or married or changing their status to “in a relationship” and I’d be lying if I say they haven’t made me feel lonely and desiring to be in a relationship at times. I am a sucker for happy endings and celebrations of love, so it’s very easy for me to get immersed in those stories and I mean, have you seen how cute proposal and wedding shoots have become lately? Who wouldn’t want to be in them?!

Considering the facts above, and having recently watched Modern Love, I recognized that my idea of love has expanded over the years and that in fact, I’ve been living in my magical fairytale all this while. With time, I’ve come to accept that the love of my life might not live in the body of a Keanu Reeves doppelgänger but instead lives in bits and pieces within a lot of wonderful humans, and an extremely handsome dog named Sir Oscar 🐶. So, instead of filling my love jar with only one kind of candy — say M&Ms, I’ve filled it with pieces of Resee’s cups, a few Snicker bars, some Nerds and lots of Kit Kats (this is the love I get from my dog, in case it wasn’t clear already), and that has been a wonderful realization in itself. That’s Modern Love to me — a jar filled with an assortment of some of the finest candies! Just like candy — these special people are sweet, they will always amp you up on energy (and motivation), and they will comfort you on a bad day, and unlike candy, too much of their love will never give you diabetes. Additionally, over the years, I have adopted hobbies and interests that make life incredibly enjoyable — exploring new places, practicing yoga, writing (every once in a while), trying out new cuisines (both, cooking and devouring) — occasions that become even more gratifying when shared with friends! Together, these individuals and experiences have become an integral part of my life, giving it definition, warmth and a feeling of completeness. I associate some of my best memories, important life events, and moments of laughter and affection, with them, and that is LOVE for me (at least, for now).

This is the reality for a lot of us, so accept it wholeheartedly — live it up and go find your candy jar! It’s okay if you fill it up with just M&Ms but it’s also OKAY if you choose not to. Acknowledge the love in the lame Dad jokes, the morning coffee that your co-worker leaves on your table, the wine-nights with your roommates, and the soup that your friend brings over when you’re under the weather. Take that love in and shine it back at the world. Sometimes you might not need THE ONE when instead you can create an entire LOVE TRIBE! ❤️

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