people’s hopes for romance—and, in turn, cause disappointment in the mundane drone of the day to day. “A real relationship is one where you take out the garbage, pay the bills and talk about your kids,” says Reid Daitzman Ph.D., practicing clinical psychologist and CEO of Foursight Game Systems. “A lot of it is really boring. What people don’t realize, though, is that the best day of their lives includes all that boring stuff. Because when people don’t have it, they really miss it. A guy who just had an affair really misses his wife and would love to be back with her talking about trivial things.” This concept can be hard to swallow when the love media portrays seems more desirable than what is experienced in reality. Shannon Martin, a young, married mom in Connecticut confides: “Romantic movies make you think your relationship is supposed to be so amazing, passionate and exciting all the time. My marriage isn’t like that, and sometimes I wonder if something’s wrong.” Adults should be able to tell the difference between over-romanticized love and healthy, realistic love. But in YOU EVER WONDER WHAT A CULTURE VALUES actuality, peoples’ lives are beginning to just echo the stories they see onscreen. The problem is, movies usually end AND HOW IT’S SHAPED, JUST LOOK INTO just as a relationship is beginning. THE LIVING ROOM OF AN AVERAGE HOME. As people consume the media’s view of love, it’s becomEVERY CULTURE IN EVERY ERA HAS BEEN CENTERED ing more common for relationships and marriages to be based on a desire for happiness and personal AROUND SOMETHING THAT COMMUNICATES VALUE TO primarily fulfillment. When these feelings fade, people think love AND INFLUENCES THE COMMUNITY. is gone and become an emotional train, moving from one lover or spouse to the next. It’s become such a problem “A colonial house was centered around a fireplace to keep warm. The that some have begun to refer to this mediated view of romance as fear was being cold,” says Derek Melleby, the director for the College “emotional pornography”—insinuating that popular expressions of Transition Initiative at the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding. love and romance rewire the brain in ways that recall the damage done “Living rooms today are centered around a TV. The fear is being by visual pornography. Just as visual pornography sets up unrealisdisconnected.” tic expectations for sex and physicality, the media’s fanciful stories of In other words, American culture values connection and intimacy love wire consumers to expect Hollywood-style kisses in the rain and above all else. Because this culture’s greatest fear is being alone— constant, epic moments of dramatic love. How can real life compete? according to the media in which Americans are constantly immersed. “One of the things that [has] Can technology and media aid intimacy? In many ways, yes. However, struck me is the formative power of they also have a polarizing effect on relationships. According to recent consumerism,” says Mark Powley, studies, the average American takes in about 3,500 to 5,000 marketing author of Consumer Detox and comessages a day and spends about 41 hours per week using technology founder of the Breathe network. “We such as cell phones, TV, video games, music and the Internet. are shaped in ways that reach beyond Everyone is spending vast amounts of time engaged in mediated our shopping habits. As consumers, reality and less time engaged with each other. Experts are only at the our identity is changeable: We’re not very beginning of understanding how this fast-changing electronic accountable to anyone, and we’re free culture will impact human love and relationships in the long term. to disengage whenever we feel like it. Because of media and technology, the ways in which people fall in More and more, these patterns are love, connect within relationship and experience sexuality are differaffecting our relationships. We move ent than any other generation before this one. How does one navigate around more, we connect with many these uncharted waters and discern what real, healthy marriages and people, but we’re not so good at comromantic relationships should look like? mitting to them.” A study by Barna Group on divorce The Love Delusion confirms that ideas about love and The root of any romance today is love, but it wasn’t always so. In past marriage are changing. “Interviews cultures, people came together because their parents arranged it or they with young adults suggest they want wanted to join lands or kingdoms; love was secondary. Today, love is their initial marriage to last, but are the only thing that matters. This over-emphasis on love is encouraged not particularly optimistic about that by media that tells stories, sings songs and writes books about how possibility,” the study reports. “There is also evidence that many young true love conquers all, is ultimately fulfilling, brings a never-ending people are moving toward embracing the idea of serial marriage, in wealth of happiness and is rarely marred by significant conflict. which a person gets married two or three times.” Sure, everyone knows real love doesn’t work this way, but that Of course the media sells the most exciting parts of love. But there’s doesn’t mean those tantalizing (and insistent) images don’t affect more to love than just excitement—there’s also God-given purpose.
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POPULAR EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE AND ROMANCE REWIRE THE BRAIN IN WAYS THAT RECALL THE DAMAGE DONE BY VISUAL PORNOGRAPHY.
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