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“Love” The Series About The Fear To Actually Fall in Love

The Netflix series that gives something to think about (Opinion).

By Mel PaczkaPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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“Love” The Series About The Fear To Actually Fall in Love
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

What does loving someone means? We all have an idea of what being in love means, right? A couple kissing, maybe holding hands, there are a thousand images that can come to our minds, but what is behind our idea of love? What do we do really when we are in love?

The Original Netflix series, created by Paul Rust, Judd Appatow, and Lesley Arfin, explores this questions in a relaxed and comic way... though some changes can be expected on the tone, just as in life. The main characters are what we know as opposites: he is in a stable relationship (and maybe too clingy), and has high love ideals, while she is constantly in and out of toxic relationships while dealing with addictions. The two of them finding each other casualy at a store might seem like the biggest destiny's act, or just a very happy chance. Anyhow, watching the series we are about to find that out.

The Big question

Both characters are having a crisis in that point of their lives, they are both young, -though not teenagers-, they have led very different ways of life, but in the end what they have in common is that they are looking for love. Both characters are in a continuous search of that partner that will fit with them perfectly.

Who has not been bombarded now a days with the ideal of a relationship? We have a tight and specific idea of what is to love thanks to romantic novels and movies constantly telling us what we need to be looking for; as Gus, one of the main characters, realizes as he goes through a brutal break-up. Most of the time these series, movies, tv shows, -you name it-, are what defines the idea everyone has of love. Think for example on Sex and the City and how the subject of relationships even overwhelms the main subject of sex, what the series is supposed to be about. The impossible love, or the enemies-to-lovers situation, they are all been written or portrayed somehow waiting to fit in our taste and set a quite unrealistic expectations.

This is exacerbated by the lives they both have. They live in L.A. the city were most of this content comes from. To make it even worse, they both work in environments that are basically creating the expectations of love: a series set, and a radio station that broadcasts programs about relationships. Of course they will be surrounded by all kinds of people, but ultimately they are focused on what they expect of each other and hardly on what makes them impossible partners.

So, there is a question I want to make about this: Will they make this new unlikely relationship actually work?

The fear to love

We know that Gus has been in a stable relationship and is the sort of conservative guy that we may even call a <<nerd>> (Which I don't think he is, but that is another subject). He is tired of being alone after his last big failure in love. What we can see, and Gus cannot otherwise the story would not exist, is that he is now scared to fall in love once more. Though he is attracted to Mickey he barely does anything to be closer to her, and if he does is very half-done and even painfully shy efforts; which in the end makes him a really awkward person.

Mickey, on the other hand, has had way many more relationships than Gus, that we know of, and is quick to get in bed with anyone she pleases, but sex has lost the connection with intimacy. In modern society, as far as movies and series portray, it is more likely to get sex in the first date than a long open-hearted conversation with a partner, and this should be a bit alarming.

I do not mean that we should go back and forbid anyone from having sex when he or she pleases so, but we must not fear the feeling of love. The two characters have had different kinds of relationships, they are both really hurt, and they do not hesitate that much to have sex, because, again, that does not necessarily mean they are being trully intimate. There is no effort in having sex beyond a physical activity, which is perfectly fine even to be fit, what they seem to be looking for though, is a very different kind of connection. For mickey, and even for Gus in a point, sex is something to do for fun, to not be fired, or out of boredom, but speaking of what trully hurts us or what we really want takes a whole support group for her, and a brave effort to give it another go from Gus.

In a larger scale

As the series goes on, we start to notice that it is not only Gus and Mickey who have trouble with their love life, but almost every other character that appears in the series. What caught my attention is that in the long run we start noticing that “Love” is not meant only in a romantic way. The character of Arya, for instance, a girl-actress in the show that Gus works in, is even lonlier than the grown-ups looking for their perfect match. She is working most of the time and her closer friend is more than 15 years her older.

The relationship of Gus with Arya seems to be superficial, but as we go on we start to get a glance that it might be the only friendship that girl can aspire to. The relationship between her parents is by far out of love, but this also translates to her in a way. It got me questioning to what extent does the series is meant to show all kinds of love there is, because we might fail in any relationship, as friends, as parents, as partners, etc. Even, as Mickey does one time, as pet owners.

Love is not only falling in love, to which we might have actually developed some fear, but also fearing love in any other way. Mickey and Gus can also be faulty son and daughter, faulty friends, and faulty lovers. They are too concerned with their own fears and problems to be empathic sometimes, and thus end up hurting the people around them.

Of course the series is a light tone of the issues, even when the show Gus works on often says the empty words “we are like a family”, but it is true that they do not stand each other (like some families). It is good, to my liking, that a series shows what is an actual problem for many people who has these emotional problems, and at the same time makes us laugh about it sometimes. All in all, I think it is a good show and am looking forward to see how it ends (I have not finished it),

Mel

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