Love is love.”
Barack Obama
The former president said this on June 26, 2015, when gay marriage was legalized in the United States. I remember that day, excited for everyone who once could not get married due to their sexual orientation. To me, it seems like a fundamental human right, and it boggles my mind that it took that long. People were so stuck in the outdated definition of love, the one that enforces the idea that romantic love is between a man and a woman.
There are many rules and expectations we learn when it comes to love. From gender roles in a relationship to the age you should get married. Most of these guidelines point you to one goal, to reproduce. To prevent the human species from going extinct. Which is a little irrational given the suffering we hear about due to overpopulation in other countries. We subconsciously learn that it is our purpose in life to reproduce and raise a family, so we’ve defined love in a way that leads us in this particular direction.
Now, if you want to have a heterosexual marriage, buy a house in the suburbs, and have 2-3 kids with a dog, you are not wrong for your desires. By all means, follow your heart. My argument is that it is simply ignorant to think and enforce that this is the only way to live and love.
To me, love is stronger than the drive to reproduce. And we see this every day with those who don’t identify with this structured way to love. So, I believe it is time to undefine love or give it a more general definition.
Love is an energy that forces you to give up selfishness in order to combine lives with your desired person. The rest of the definition is up to the lovers themselves.
Awkward AF 