Love has become romanticized in media

Humanity is loving, and there is no doubt showing love the way Valentine’s Day intended is beautiful.

February’s first two weeks are a whirlpool of brilliant reds and pinks, saturated in the smell of candy behind wrapping in isles of goods. Though, it does seem stores start a little earlier on the marketing each year.

The aesthetic is vibrant. It’s cute, capitalizing and bold. It’s love!

But it’s also love that gets misheard, misused, misled.

People want to see and experience the love they recognize from what’s around them, and why shouldn’t they? What’s around people is influence wrapped in cellophane, branded as what you need and what people want.

The media’s influence on love makes it something enchanting, like it was chance and otherworldly influences that brought a pair together – no work needed.

It’s the kind of influence that told people that soulmates are the finale and the happy ending is right around the corner with just about any stranger. Don’t waste time! Or it’s the kind of influence that labels aggression, pain and disrespect the first step right before undying love as long as the other party endures it for long enough.

So, when the world grows up with the media in front of them displaying certain roles and expectations of grandeur, people

VIEWPOINTS look for it to translate in their own life.

Real life has a different tune.

Love takes time, and there seems to be an emphasis on finding the one before it’s too late. There’s plenty of movies and shows out there, like the Netflix series “The

Kissing Booth,” of teenagers and young adults experiencing love right then and there. For watchers, suddenly it seems like it has to happen the way we watched it at the age it all happens. People find out eventually that the period after “The End” is