Cóphi Productions

“Picture it, Sicily, 1923…”

Once upon a time, there was a woman named Sophia that lived in a Sicilian village. When she came of age, she was to marry a boy from her village, Guido Spirelli. Sophia wasn’t having any it, so she fled the village, found her way to New York and met Salvadore Petrillo. They courted, fell in love, got married and lived happily ever after.

The End 🙂

Granted this is the storyline from The Golden Girls, it is similar to the stories of our parents and grandparents’ unions. My own grandparents (pictured above) met when my grandfather was supposed to be meeting someone else. A U.S. Navy man, my grandfather was with his friends at a bar one night, waiting on a woman that would never show, when in walks my Nana. It was love at first sight for them both! From that night, they began a courtship that would blossom into a marriage that lasted 25 years before he passed away in 1981. Nana followed him all over the country before he settled at the Navy Base in Willow Grove, PA. They had their fair share of ups and downs, but they stayed together through it all.

Through conversations with friends and talks in the back of Uber pools, in addition to reading Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari (which I recommend y’all read,) I have concluded that the majority of our grandparents and parents met and fell in love through courtship; they got to know one another, spent time together, and fell in genuine love. They didn’t have the distractions we have right now. They were committed to one another and their love, doing whatever it took to make it work. Were they perfect? Not all of them, this we know. Were the times different? For sure, as the economic, social and political times played a pivotal part in the unions of our elders. We’ll get into that in another blog.

Our generation, however, isn’t fairing as well as the generations before us.

Let me stop right here and acknowledge the fact that there are some of us that believe in genuine love and courtship and the sanctity of marriage. For us, it is more than just a piece of paper or the measurement of success. However, there are many that believe love and marriage are bullshit and that love and matrimony are nothing more than stories of days past.

Quite frankly, we aint our ancestors.

Thanks to the advancement of technology (as well as the social, cultural, political and economic changes,) we are not falling in love like our parents and grandparents. We’re working more and living less. We’re in student loan debt up to our eyeballs. Society has (basically) turned a blind eye to sidechicks and infidelity, embracing the idea that, “boys will be boys.” Courtship has been traded in for Netflix and chill (not to say that chilling is bad, but if that is the only thing going on, that is NOT courting.) We’re afraid to commit for fear of getting played or missing out on (what we think is) something better, so we’re not taking the actual time to get to know a person (why talk to one when you can talk to many?) Also, mentioned above, some of our parents and grandparents stayed together through some rough ups and downs, and those ups and downs witnessed may have been too much to deal with. Many of us have seen more bad than good, and refuse to relive the lives our parents lived. In addition to all of this, there are some that are dealing with childhood trauma (physical/mental/emotional/sexual abuse) and are simply incapable of committing to partners because they can’t even commit to themselves and begin the journey to healing.

All of this, in my opinion, is why modern romance is a thing of the past, like $1.00 gas and 10 cent candy bars (really wish I was around for those 10 cent candy bars.) There are, as I’ve said before, the bunch of us that are following in our elders’ footsteps, courting and believing in the Love Unicorn, but the rest are all convinced that love is the equivalent of Big Foot (bullshit.)

Where do I stand?

I am chasing the Unicorn. Love is as real to me as the air we breathe.

I have been known to be longwHinded, so I’ll stop here. If you agree/disagree, feel free to comment and we can continue the conversation below.

Peace,

A.B.