Quick Note: this post is mostly about dating/courting relationships. Caleb and Kelsey, who did the cover I posted on Monday, are married, s...

Thoughtful Thursdays: Why I Don’t Like Super "Romantic" Love Songs

Alexa Mintah

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Quick Note: this post is mostly about dating/courting relationships. Caleb and Kelsey, who did the cover I posted on Monday, are married, so I don’t know, maybe it’s okay, even good, that they feel that way about each other. Anyway, this post is based upon the way the song was originally sung, between two people who were not married, and based on the way I think many teenagers see relationships.

Original photo from Pixabay

But how do you expect me

To live alone with just me?

Cuz my world revolves around you

It’s so hard for me to breathe...

If you ain’t here, I just can't breathe

It’s no air, no air.

Sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? So sweet and adorable and gorgeous and perfect. I listen to it and I imagine someone singing like that to me someday, needing me like that.

And then I wake up, because I’m not sure that’s really what I want.

Romantic and sweet as they are, I don’t really like songs like “No Air.” Okay, so I do, but in the back of my mind, some part of me whispers, saying this isn’t the type of relationship I want. Sure I wanna fall in love and stuff. I want someone to look at me the way Peeta looks at Katniss, to say I’m beautiful (in foreign languages/accents because we all know that’s gorgeous) the way Ren does to Kelsey, to joke with me and care about me the way Percy does to Annabeth. But I’m not sure I want someone to need me that much, and I’m not sure if I want to need someone that much.

Maybe I’m overthinking it, but when you get to the realm of needing a person like you need air, isn’t that a little... overdependent? I mean, you’re saying that you actually cannot exist without this person, that you would, quite literally, die without them. You’re saying that without them, you’re incomplete, nothing, basically dead. For all intents and purposes, they are you, at least all the parts that matter.

But is it good to put so much identity and trust in someone who is as fallible as you are? Is that oh-so-common line “You complete me,” what we really need to hear?

Because if you love someone because you just need them, because you have these feelings, and you can’t help yourself, then you love them because they’re completing you, because they give you a sense of wholeness. At that point, I think the love then becomes self-serving. Because now you’re expecting something from that other person, you need something from them in order to continue loving them, instead of simply giving what you can to them. In a sense, the love actually becomes selfish. And because love isn’t selfish, that can’t be real, true love.

Because of that, I think you have to be a complete person by yourself before you can love someone completely. Then, rather than the two of you completing each other, you strengthen each other, give and take, maybe not 50/50 all the time, but you don’t love them because they make you feel complete, because you're nothing without them. You love them because they’re them, because while love is an emotion, it’s more importantly an action, and an action is something you have to choose. I’d even say that the feeling alone is nothing but infatuation, and if your relationship is based solely upon that, then it isn’t really love. It’s chemicals and hormones—which fluctuate on a daily basis—all mixed up and thrown together to form a selfish obsession and an unhealthy relationship. Because at that point, you have put all of your trust, all of your “love,” all of your self into a single human being, who may have their good qualities yes, but ultimately is as flawed and imperfect as you are. You’re begging a simple human to fill something in your soul that only God can.

It’s true that we can’t be complete in ourselves, but it’s also true that—because we are all broken and imperfect and empty—no human can ever completely fill that place for us.

Before marriage, I don’t want to complete someone, to be someone’s air, to be two pieces of a broken heart. Romantic as all that sounds, I want to be one of two people, each complete in Jesus, coming together in marriage to form one better, stronger team. I don’t want that love to be tainted by human selfishness. I don’t want to put that amount of unfair pressure on a man who, try as he might, cannot fulfill me. I don’t want to be so dependent upon an individual who’s as fallible and imperfect as I am. I’d rather put that kind of trust in someone who deserves it, someone who can grow me until I love like He loves, someone who has proven He can handle it, proven Himself completely perfect, completely trustworthy, completely able to handle anything I throw at Him and still love me unconditionally, even to giving His very life for my soul: the Lord Jesus Christ. :D

This has been random thoughts with Alexa. The part of the month where Alexa comes out and shares her random thoughts.

Please share your own thoughts in the comments! Disagree? Agree? I’d love to know and hear the reasons behind it!

P.S.: This doesn’t mean I’m swearing off love songs forever, lol. While I may not completely agree with them, they are still cute and adorable and they do give me feels (which are just hormones and chemistry and electrical reactions, but oh well. One can’t be Spock-level-logical all the time. :) ).

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