By Patricia Fontejon

We often look at love in two different categories: active and passive. Active love involves actively pursuing relationships, taking initiative, expressing interest, and actively engaging in the process of finding love. On the other hand, passive love adopts a more laid-back approach, waiting for love to come, expecting someone else to make the first move, and hoping that the right person will appear in your life without actively seeking him or her out.

Many people view love passively, believing that it is out there waiting for them to stumble upon it. This approach often causes people to become selective about which market they put themselves into or they turn to love simply to avoid loneliness.

Most people assume that love is just intuitively known and does not need to be learned and that everyone will naturally know what it is. Love should be regarded as an active art, focusing on giving rather than receiving. In his book “The Art of Loving,” German philosopher Erich Fromm suggests that giving, without expecting anything in return, is the best way to combat existential loneliness.

This is especially true in giving love because when you give love, you give all the things that make up yourself such as your interests, emotions, passions, and even knowledge. Sharing your thoughts, humor, joy, and sadness is what giving love is.

Cultural influences play a significant role in shaping our understanding and perception of love. Media, fairy tales, and societal norms often promote passive love, perpetuating the idea that love is solely about receiving affection and attention. This passive love narrative can be seen in popular romance films where the protagonist simply waits for their perfect match to come along and sweep them off their feet.

Movies like “500 Days of Summer” and “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” add to the creation of hyperreal expectations of love. These depictions, which may seem more real than reality, blur the expectations of reality, distorting our perceptions of love in the real world. These expectations and tropes constrain us into thinking love needs to be a certain way. But the thing is, these expectations and tropes are not based on reality.

Teenagers should learn to love authentically. We are constantly surrounded by people who post picture-perfect moments of their relationship and it constantly makes us fixate on how good the love we receive is. We are convinced that we should never settle, that there is some person out there who will give us love as perfect as the ones we see in films and TV shows, but it’s important to remember that these movies are not real, they are hyperreal. The love on your TV screen looks perfect and more idealized than reality, so it makes you crave that hyperreality.

Valentine’s Day in particular offers us the chance to reflect on how we understand and express love. Instead of focusing solely on receiving love from others, we should actively give love to ourselves and those around us. This mindset shift allows us to build healthier relationships, develop personally, and become more self-aware. Through self-reflection, we can understand our needs and shortcomings better, enabling us to offer love authentically.