When Romance Got Too Loud
From TikTok couples to “If he wanted to, he would”, Q Radio’s Jordan Arnold explores how modern love became a performance and why real romance lives in the mundane.
We’ve survived January, hurrah. Blue Monday has passed, the tax bill is paid, and the nights are getting brighter. Although now, we’re greeted with February. The month of love. Which honestly sometimes feels more like a punishment than January does in this modern world. Because somewhere along the way, romance got really, really loud.
It’s everywhere now, shoved down our throats via scrolling thumbs. Loud love is on our phones, in our social media feeds, and thus infiltrates our brains. Perfectly edited TikTok couples cooking dinner in matching pyjamas. Grand gestures filmed from three angles. “If he wanted to, he would” quotes displayed over increasingly unrealistic relationship goalposts.
Like last week, I saw a girl saying she’d leave her husband if he ever expected her to put her own petrol in her car. Wise up. Suddenly, none of our surprisingly feels a bit underwhelming. Well, I want to put it out there. I don’t think we hate romance or even lack it. I think we’re just exhausted by the version we’ve been sold and have lost all semblance of perspective.
Nineties rom-coms taught us love should be dramatic, all boomboxes at the window and passionate kisses in the rain. Fast-forward to the age of social media, and it’s taught us it should be visible and performative. And somewhere in between, we decided if it isn’t intense, constant and aesthetically pleasing, maybe it doesn’t count. Set up a camera and do that nice thing again so I can post it.
But in case you need reminded, real relationships live in the boring, mundane bits. There’s joy in Tesco runs and daily, frustrating conversations about what’s for tea. It’s choosing each other on days neither of you is at your best. That’s real love. It’s just not Instagrammable.
We’ve started confusing intensity with intimacy, grand gestures with effort, public declarations with quiet consistency. Social media rewards spectacle, not stability, turning relationships into curated content. Couples become brands. Love becomes a performance. So when that’s the version we see every day, it’s no wonder real-life love can feel like it’s falling short. And I say this as someone who’s partial to a post on the gram with my husband. But I know in my heart we most “us” and at our loving best when we look like two stinkers, sprawled on the sofa with our dog between us and a Chinese on our laps, wetting ourselves at reruns of The Inbetweeners.
There’s also so much pressure on single women. They’re told to have standards, fair enough, but also that if it doesn’t feel magical all the time, they’re “settling”. As if love should be an endless picture-perfect montage rather than something that evolves, deepens, and occasionally annoys you.
I’d dare to say the phrase “if he wanted to, he would” has done more harm than we admit. Effort matters, sure, but effort doesn’t always look like wild surprises or poetic speeches. Sometimes it’s consistency. Reliability. Someone doing the dishes without being asked or running you a bath on a cold Tuesday night. Staying when it’s dull, hard, or very, very real.
Romance doesn’t disappear when the butterflies calm down. It just changes shape, becomes real romance is quieter. It’s not always roses and reservations. Sometimes it’s simply a text that says “drive safe”, knowing exactly how someone takes their tea, or a random dodgy dance in the kitchen while the pasta boils.
Yet because we’re constantly consuming the loud, shiny version, we query the quiet one. We compare and question. We measure our relationships against strangers’ highlights and they’re probably squabbling flat out behind the scenes.
Truthfully though, the most authentically romantic relationships I know aren’t flashy. They’re solid and built on effort you don’t see, moments you wouldn’t even think to film. And honestly, that feels like a better love story to me.
Via a occasional cheesy Instagram post if you’re into them, sometimes they can be nice, but down with them being yardsticks for how everyday, real love should look.
Happy Valentines Day or month to you and yours, whether you celebrated it with a M&S Dine In for Two, a dozen red roses, a tan, a lack of acknowledgement, or a chartered private jet to a Caribbean island he’s hired out especially for you. And if it’s the latter, for God’s sake, send me a pic.
