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The Difference Between The Construction Of Romantic Love In Fiction And The Real Life

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Casper Libero chapter.

With the consumption of cliche books and films, which we have made since childhood, we learn to think that love is something simple and lasting. But when reality comes across, we realize that is not as easy and exciting as the movies and books have taught us. In this article, the theme of the difference of love in books and films and in real life will be addressed.

A good example to start this reflection is the movie  “The Notebook”, which covers the romance between a passionate teenage couple, Allie and Noah, which unfortunately break up due to family disagreements. In the end, they reunite and realize that they still love each other. The central idea permeates our minds: love never dies. 

In that same reasoning, when we read “The Fault In Our Stars’’ we notice how much the couple, Hazel Grace and Augustus Water, have a good connection. So, we believe in the concept that love is sudden, easy and that “couple connection” always works. 

The media, therefore, gives us an idea of magical love, but in reality, it’s not always so easy. Passion, after times without seeing, can really last – as “The Notebook” shows- but it can also be transformed into another feeling, such as gratitude or friendship, and we can fall in love with another person. Besides, it is not so simple to abandon a consolidated life- with husband or wife and job-  to live a great passion experience. The social, economic and affective sides are put in the balance and it is not always possible to give up all this and risk an adventure. The films taught us that love has no barriers, yet in real life it has for sure some limits.

The Notebook
New Line Cinema
Moreover, Augustus and Hazel’s love is not a single truth. Sometimes a couple’s connection is not so immediate and it takes time to work: it depends on a lot of will and effort to make everyone really happy. The books give us this idea that the passions are right at first, but there is the possibility of loving someone very different from us, who does not show love in the same way. In addiction, sex is not always a first-rate wonder: it can take a lot of conversation and practice to make everyone satisfied.

Lana Condor Peter Kavinsky GIF by NETFLIX
Netflix / Giphy
To bring real experiences to the text ,we talked to a college teenager to see if she has ever suffered this influence from the media in her relationships. According to Maria Clara Mendes, Journalism student at Cásper Líbero, she had two love disappointments because of that:

“When i was twelve years, I read a book that addresses the novel in high school, and then I thought that when I got into high school I would live a passion like that. But that didn’t happen, because I had someone idealized in my mind, and I had a strange relationship with a boy who actually didn’t like me. I thought that when I fell in love with someone, that person would fall in love with me back, like in the book.’’ 

Her other disappointment was at the end of high school: There was a boy who only quarreled with me in the ninth grade, and everyone said that this would result in dating. There’s a lot of movies that show people fighting, but in the end they’re a happy couple. In the end, I kissed this boy in the third year of high school, but it wasn’t good. I just wanted to get out of that situation”. 

Thus, we can perceive the enormous difference between media love and real love. Consuming books and movies is nice as an entertainment, culture and hobby form, but we should not forget that the reality is different from that, especially when we talk about our own feelings and concepts of love in different relationships. Idealizing something with fictional references can end up generating frustrations and problems to develop mature and solid feelings.

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The article above was edited by Larissa Mariano.

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Amanda Paulilo

Casper Libero '24

Journalism student who seeks to improve her knowledge and write skills