I'm sick of romance !!!!! – Bonus Disc #2

BONUS DISC #2

you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love independent

Everywhere I go, everything I watch, every time I enter a conversation; all roads lead to romance. To falling in love. To marriage, to the future, to children.

This is infuriating mainly because romance is so far off my radar right now. I’m not seeking out a partner, and I have no desire for hookups. All I want to do is care for myself. I want to be alone, experience the world through my own eyes before I even consider living it alongside someone else.

With Olivia Rodrigo’s album announcement, aside from excitement, I also have been feeling nervous. Her other albums came at perfect moments in my life; Sour when I had just gotten my driver’s license and was in the beginning stages of a situationship; Guts when said situationship ended and I was fully immersing myself in writing poetry for the first time. It helps that Olivia Rodrigo and I are close in age and that we’re both pisces (same birthday even!) who pour our hearts into our writing.

You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, though, was worrisome to me. I haven’t stepped towards another romantic relationship since the first one I had, which was a pretty big disaster all things considered. Will it be possible for me to relate to this when romantic love isn’t a part of my life anymore? I know it will be great, but will I feel connected to it?

Reading this article in British Vogue from a few weeks ago has helped me think about it in a different way. It’s going to be a romance album, yes, but it’s also about Olivia as anxious about her lover, about Olivia’s growth as a human separate from yet still intertwined with her love life.

Olivia quotes Broad City in the article when referencing marriage and how she is absolutely not ready for it yet. This makes me feel connected to her mindset despite a new difference in our places in life––we are both still girls in our 20s who want to live our 20s for ourselves, not anyone else.

Last night, my roommate and I had a long discussion about love and womanhood and our very TBD postgrad plans. She’s been in a relationship for five years, yet we had similar mindsets about practically everything.

I don’t need or want love in my life right now. I’m much happier living my life on my own terms, focusing on writing and schoolwork, and understanding who I want to become. I’m happy. Genuinely.

All that being said…there’s also a constant fear that I’m missing out. That my lack of real experience is setting me miles behind all my peers and inspirations. And, to put it plainly, part of me wants to fall in love. I want to live a romcom, or really I just want to live a normal life, which includes love.

The world constantly emphasizing the importance of love makes me feel lacking, and there’s nothing more I can do about it than what I’m already doing. I have no answer for how to fix this lack. Love feels like a mountain in front of me I just have to stare at until I’m ready to climb. But there’s no shame in the waiting, the preparing.

When every conversation seems to circle back to romance I get absurdly frustrated. I’m angry because love shouldn’t be all we talk about. I’m angry because I can’t stop thinking about love, either. I’m angry because part of me wants it so bad and another part of me is ashamed of that desire when I preach independence so frequently.

I’m going to walk the path in front of me as best I can. I’ll face love if it greets me, I’ll face the mixed emotions of its absence.

I want you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love to apply to me, but it’s okay if it doesn’t. I don’t think that I have to be in love to relate to it, though, especially not when Olivia’s music resonates with me for so many reasons beyond love.

We tend to think of love as purpose before anything else; we think, this is a love story primarily and something else. Maybe it’s time to prioritize the something else.

I’m going to look at you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love focusing on the you––on Olivia and her own growth––rather than solely on the subject of love. The album, as described in the British Vogue article, heavily features her experiences with love, but they’re ultimately about her and nothing else.

Basically: I’m sick of love being forced upon me, I’m sick of it not happening to me, I’m sick of it being all we talk about, and I’m sick of the way I want to talk about it too.