What I say next may come off as an outrageous statement at first glance, but before you decide I’m an insane pessimist and completely discount it, I can explain. I think that fairytale romances are overrated. All they have ever created is false hope, ultimately leading to broken hearts. From real life to the big screen and everywhere in between, the strongest relationships, the ones that people secretly desire, are never the easy ones.
The newest Julia Roberts and George Clooney collaboration, Ticket to Paradise, highlights various types of love, each distinct from the others. The movie's most noteworthy relationship was, by far, Georgia and David's highly dysfunctional yet passionate romance. Their short-lived marriage right out of college is introduced as a mutually understood catastrophic mistake, with the one and only silver lining being their daughter Lily. Over twenty years later, Georgia admittedly still tries “not to be in the same time zone [as David] if [she] can help it.” That is until they get an email from the newly graduated Lily announcing her plan to move to Bali to marry the man she recently met and fell in love with, giving up her job at a top law firm. Calling a truce and flying to Bali to stop the wedding, the movie takes us on a rollercoaster ride as Georgia and David accidentally reignite their old flame while Georgia simultaneously struggles in her picture-perfect relationship with her young and charming boyfriend, Paul.
On the surface, Paul is basically a Ken doll. He says all the right things to flatter Georgia and plans out romantic gestures to surprise her, but their relationship lacks substance. This, compared to the intensity of each and every interaction between Georgia and David as they constantly bicker and compete against one another, masterfully emphasizes which relationship is more desirable.
When Paul proposes to Georgia, Lily’s response to the announcement really stuck with me. She says to Georgia: “But you’re never your best self with him. Yeah, he’s kind and he’s got those eyes. But it’s not enough. Being loved is not the same as loving.” The ups and downs involved in love may feel horrible in the heat of the moment, but they strengthen a relationship so much more than anyone realizes. And the bumps also improve people as individuals, pushing them to improve constantly. As long as, at the end of the day, each member of a couple proves to be the other's biggest cheerleader and most dedicated teammate, the method by which they show their support can be nontraditional.
And this is not a new concept. Mrs. Dalloway’s Clarissa married Richard Dalloway because it was simple. Their relationship gave her the stability her young mind desired, and she kept her independence even as they grew older and created a family. Yet decades later, Clarissa’s heart still ached for Peter Walsh. He proved that even after so much time had passed, he could still not provide her with the seemingly uncomplicated relationship that Richard has, but logistics don’t matter to the heart.
A straightforward relationship would, of course, be ideal, but not at the expense of other characteristics essential to romance. I rarely meet people who stay up at night fantasizing about a future relationship consisting of monotonous days with a person they live a virtually separate life from. As Clarissa and Georgia both did, though, people all too often seem to mistake tolerance or coexistence for love. Being loved is an extraordinary thing, but it fails in comparison to the feeling of getting to love.
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