On Love and Mediocrity.

So with the yearly celebration of the decline of modern romance (aka Valentine’s day) fast approaching I find myself asking whether or not we all have a dichotomous choice to be single, individual and creative or fat, lazy and in love.

There are those who would accuse me of being cynical and maudlin because I won’t have a companion to exchange sappy teddy bear cards with on this particular Hallmark holiday. Given the fact that the last girl I fell in love with is about to get married to some guy she has been dating for less time than most people take to decide on an evening outfit I can see how you’d make that erroneous assumption. However, I would be quick to point out the fact that I am a tragic, fanatic, emphatic romantic. In India I once stole a flower from a forbidden garden in a Maharaja’s palace beneath the watch of armed guards for a girl I was at the time entangled with. Try and package and mass-produce THAT Hallmark.

When I was thirteen I read Wuthering Heights and basically treated it as a manual for romance. To my churlish, hormone saturated teenage brain nothing made more sense than a love that was overwhelming, enrapturing and ultimately tragic. A few years transpired and I was jettisoned unexpectedly into the real world where all of a sudden it became apparent that when searching for potential partners people actually considered things like income, style of dress and choice of residence, as if romance were some sort of credit card plan to be decided upon by a series of ticked boxes. I’ve always thought of it as an insurmountable tidal wave of force that can no more be reasoned with than a grizzly bear can be taught to play guitar hero.

At this point in my life I find many of the beloved people I surround myself with are, (with a few notable exceptions, you know who you are,) either coupling up, settling down and erecting cages out of white picket fences or staying single and living in a constant whirlwind of dizzying debauchery and, more importantly, losing themselves in wild storms of violent creative outbursts. It appears that many around me are rapidly transmogrifying into progenitors and newlyweds, and I am starting to wonder if the incessant barrage of revelry and debauchery that I have lately been basking in will decline at an exponential rate.

The ultimate goal, as far as I can see, is not to find someone who makes you content, dependant and repentant but rather one who makes you wild, resplendent and relentless. I have a particular fondness for bands led by married couples such as Sonic Youth and Viva Voce. Anyone who can manage to find someone that they want to spend the rest of their life with not only reading Sunday papers and getting fat but making art and continuing to greedily devour the world that is their oyster deserves some sort of mountain made of pancakes as a reward.