feeling punchy about Holiday shit tonight so friendly reminder that the concept of “true love”/soulmates is one of the most toxic cultural inventions there has ever been! broken so many young brains. just find someone you’re comfortable with and work your asses off about the rest of it - ThreadSky

tjsleakyroof.bsky.social • 165 days ago

feeling punchy about Holiday shit tonight so friendly reminder that the concept of “true love”/soulmates is one of the most toxic cultural inventions there has ever been! broken so many young brains. just find someone you’re comfortable with and work your asses off about the rest of it

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mtgillikin.bsky.social•165 days ago

One inconvenient data point for the soulmate framing is that even in relationships that last a long time, one partner is going to die before the other. Often way before. Then what?

moxievoxy.bsky.social•165 days ago

Counterargument: I fucking love my girlfriend so much and can’t imagine being as happy with anyone else

moxievoxy.bsky.social•165 days ago

Source:

smolsen.bsky.social•165 days ago

I can attest that although I did find true love, it wasn’t permanent. That level of connection needed a supportive ecosystem and we didn’t have enough of one ultimately. So it broke.

haleymay.bsky.social•165 days ago

I think we can afford to be a liiiiittle romantic

tjsleakyroof.bsky.social•165 days ago

I never said otherwise

dem8z.bsky.social•165 days ago

I hear you and agree completely. The 15-year-old in my knows he has met “the one.” Toni Morrison consistently critiqued romantic love, which she regarded as among “the most destructive ideas in the history of thought.” It “originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.”

niais.bsky.social•165 days ago

Just a light pitch here - my teenager has been reading bell hooks "the book of love" and it is great and timely revolutionary reading for teens. Really helps with a reset from so much relationship based cultural mess.

longislandtonv.bsky.social•165 days ago

Question:
Is this the right book and do we need to read the other 2 books in the series to understand this one?

niais.bsky.social•165 days ago

Sorry, yes - all about love (that's what I get for skeeting before coffee) and no, you can start here.

longislandtonv.bsky.social•165 days ago

Going into my 18yr olds, "Something to Read" portion of her gift list.

dem8z.bsky.social•165 days ago

Thanks for the reminder. I will take it from my bookshelf and place it on his night table.

dem8z.bsky.social•165 days ago

I try to tell him that he will likely meet many, many loves over the course of his life. I know it will do no good to remind him that last year he was absolutely certain ____ was “the one” and now he never mentions her. The hormones, they are a-raging and nephew thinks I’m “too old” to understand.

dem8z.bsky.social•165 days ago

Once again, I bite my tongue and resist the urge to answer: “it’s precisely because I’m old that I understand.” I’m grateful to this day that I didn’t get yoked to the serial “soul mates” who rotated in and out of my life. 😂

julianajess.bsky.social•165 days ago

I never found a "soul mate." Sometimes I have to remind myself that it does not indicate a personal failing on my part. I've shared space with lots of souls whose spirits resonated with me deeply.

tjsleakyroof.bsky.social•165 days ago

oof, yeah. in retrospect I was given so much good advice in my youth that I just wasn’t able to hear at the time. suppose it has ever been thus 😂

andyorban.bsky.social•165 days ago

Amen. Good relationships require effort and honesty.

andyorban.bsky.social•165 days ago

Cogitating on this some more (and to defend the romantic aspect of a couple relationship,) I feel there is something a bit more needed than "comfortable with" to make a relationship work. That romantic spark (and sometimes just the memory thereof) can sustain the motivation to put in the work.

tjsleakyroof.bsky.social•165 days ago

yeah I mean romance is absolutely important! I’m just disputing the idea that it’s the product of some magical, nonreproducible connection that you just sit around and wait for

carisadel.bsky.social•165 days ago

Preachhhhhh

tjsleakyroof.bsky.social•165 days ago

to clarify, romance is good and important and I am not hating on your relationship. I just think that it’s a chemical reaction produced by hormones released in your brain in response to stimuli and therefore at least theoretically repeatable 🙃 this doesn’t make it less real, just complicated!

chriskaiserva.bsky.social•165 days ago

yeah i mean, one might argue that valuing a human connection for what it is and assuming responsibility for protecting and cultivate it is actually more special than if it were a cosmic inevitability.

tjsleakyroof.bsky.social•165 days ago

!!!

mustelina.bsky.social•165 days ago

💯 I wish I’d read this thread and these comments about 50 years ago. It might have saved me a lot of heartache.

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