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Is There a Fairytale Ending?
March 1, 2012
Filed under News
I Love You. Three simple words that are capable of sending someone’s emotions up into space or down into the gutter. For senior Erica Goynes, nothing in the world feels better than love.
“Love is overwhelming, it’s intoxicating,” said Goynes. “It’s when you care about someone more than you care about yourself.”
Goynes believes that love has nothing to do with appearances, but as long as two people are willing to put in the work, it is possible for love to last forever. Freshman Kristy Phal agrees with Goynes.
“Love doesn’t always last,” said Phal. “For some people it does, some people die in love.”
Phal believes that love is the unconditional feeling one gets for another person and that true love isn’t about looks; it’s the inside that counts. Junior Ariany Reyes expresses similar sentiments. She thinks that true love isn’t what one sees on the outside.
“True love is when you care about someone so much you are willing to cross a street of needles just to see them happy,” said Reyes. “It’s when you know your soul and heart are embodied within them, and you have found that person that accepts everything about you.”
Goynes feels that the media tends to bend teenager’s perceptions on love. Many shows such as Jersey Shore, where reality stars like Snooki hook-up almost every night, illustrate love as being a physical relationship, rather than an emotional commitment.
“I don’t think [these views] are necessarily intentional. So many people confuse ideas about sex, infatuation, and temptation with love,” said Goynes. “It’s more of an issue with personal interpretation. If you’ve experienced what it’s like to ‘love’ someone, you can easily make the distinction. But if you haven’t, you could get caught up in it pretty easily.”
English teacher Barbara Moreci sees the effect that the media has regarding love. She witnesses teenager’s actions on a daily basis and realizes how easily teens “fall in love.”
“True love is possible for a mature teen,” Moreci said. “Unfortunately, a teenager’s concept of love is skewed by the media and hormones, and it’s mostly negative.”
Love can exist for a teenager; however, for most teenagers it is simply an overused word. The word is thrown around because teens often don’t know the difference between like and love.
“I know love is overused because so many naive teenagers use it as if they need to. You don’t need to say I love you until you actually really mean it,” said Reyes. “Love should be a treasured word as if you just told your deepest, darkest secret to the special someone you really trust.”
Junior Jonathan Apostol believes that love in the media is portrayed too promiscuously. Movies, such as No Strings Attached, display the carelessness of emotions in which people are only worried about physical attractions.
“Love isn’t just passion, it’s tender and caring too,” Apostol said. “The media doesn’t reflect that.”
Apostol is currently in a relationship with his girlfriend of four months and although he agrees that love is an overused word and emotion, he just might be in love himself.
“I love the way she smiles and laughs, and she makes me happy,” said Apostol. “I’m not sure if I’m completely in love, I do love my girlfriend, but it’s not at its peak…yet.”
Junior Courtney Payne hasn’t experienced the feeling of being in love. However, she thinks that when one loves someone, one doesn’t want to be with them temporarily, but instead for the rest of their life.
Payne definitely wants to be in love someday, “Of course I want to be in love,” she said. “I mean, who doesn’t? But the person I love will be someone that I am fully comfortable with and can be myself with.”
To Payne, love is beautiful, but senior Ebony Milbury feels slightly different.
“Love is the most beautiful pain in the world,” Milbury said. “It is wanting the best for someone, no matter what it does to you and wanting to be near them and help them through good times and bad.”
Other students, such as freshman Madi Drill, do not think there is a specific way to define love.
“Love isn’t expressed through words, but through feelings,” said Drill. “There are so many different types of love that just one definition couldn’t explain it all.”
The definition and feeling of love might not be the same to everyone, but to senior Gabriel Jacobs, it is possible for love to last forever.
“I believe once you love someone, you will always love them,” Jacobs said. “Someday, you might move on, but how you felt will never change.”