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Escaping from the Land of Love Stinks
By Camerin Courtney
February 6, 2002
Tucked on the back corner of my magnetic-poetry-filled refrigerator are two words that give away my latest attitude problem: romance atheist.
I could try to claim that these two words ended up next to each other by accident in the jumble of words, photos, and city magnets from places I've visited on various vacations gracing the front and sides of my fridge, but that would be a lie. In a moment of single-person disgust and disillusionment one day, I very deliberately put these two words next to each other.
It's the same disillusionment that drives me to make gagging noises whenever I see an ad for a romantic boy-meets-girl, boy-gets-girl movie and that forces me to roll my eyes when I spy a happy couple holding hands and whispering private comments to each other. Yes, I know how immature and bitter this sounds — at least now I do.
The thing is, this attitude problem snuck up on me so subtly and slowly that I had no idea how icky I looked and sounded until I flipped forward a few weeks in my calendar, saw February 14 looming near, and felt myself dreading this Day of Love — an attitude I've preached against often in my tenure as a single person. How did I get to be this jaded, I wondered as I started to recall other negative reactions to recent displays of affection and romance and when I noticed those telling two words on my fridge while I waited for my much-needed coffee to percolate one morning.
Romance Atheist. One who's thumbing her nose at the happy couples of the world. One who's given up on love. Could this really be me?
When I realized how much I sounded like a junior higher who makes fun of a crowd of people simply because she's not allowed into the clique, and how my bad attitude was flying in the face of the God who designed us to love and be loved, I knew I had to make some changes. While it was easy to spot the circumstances that had led me to this place — breakups, dry spells, too many wedding invites in one year, a culture that preaches the religion of romance, obnoxious teenagers who paw each other in public — it was much more difficult to figure out how to get myself out of the Land of Love Stinks. So, I went to the One who created love and asked for some help.
I asked God to soften my heart, to help me appreciate the friend and family love that's been lavished on me in undeserved measure, and to help me somehow still respect romance even if I have to do so from a distance. The idea he gave me was wonderful, of course. I grabbed a concordance and began jotting into a journal Bible verses with the word "love" in them, a practice I repeat every night before I go to bed. My heart melts when I read verses such as Zephaniah 3:17, "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Not only does this new habit fill my mind with positive references to love, it also fills it with a picture of real love — not the Hollywood or lusty-lovers-in-a-fallen-world version.
My next idea came from a much more unlikely place: an episode of Ally McBeal. In between all the zany antics of Ally and her cohorts, there was a plot line about Ally wanting to believe in love again. After having her heart broken one too many times, she realized she'd become jaded about matters of the heart. The final scene of the show featured Ally turning down an invite to join her coworkers for their usual song-and-dance fest at the downstairs bar after work for a trek to a nearby ice skating rink. As she laced up her skates and took to the ice, she watched all the couples making the big oval hand-in-hand, helping each another up when they fell, and occasionally twirling one another. She watched not with contempt, but with appreciation for the sweet moments around her as she enjoyed weaving her own solo dance amongst them.
That poignant scene came to mind when my friend Ruth and I went swing dancing a couple weeks ago. After taking the free lessons to refresh our memory (we used to be "regulars"), we sat back to admire the current regulars as the live swing band took the stage. While I could have been frustrated that nearly no one asked us to dance, I instead enjoyed the talents of the couples burning up the dance floor. One particular pair caught my eye on a slower song. This older married couple opted for the more traditional slow dance, the woman's eyes closed in pure joy as she clutched her spouse and enjoyed this stolen moment of romance in the midst of a bustling room. Instead of gagging at this display, I glanced occasionally at their happy faces and admired their obvious admiration of each other.
Then, in an effort to salvage February 14 from being a Day of Dread, I sent out an e-mail to my single girlfriends inviting them to gather with me in a non-couple-y place that night — Disco Diva Night at the same club where Ruth and I went swing dancing. Together we'll chat, laugh, eat, and perhaps even dance to the '70s and '80s music the DJ spins that night — enjoying our own brand of Valentine's Day fun as well as the love that exists between good friends.
At the end of that evening I hope to find an extra special love verse to jot in my journal — about the love God lavishes on his undeserving (and occasionally jaded) children. And maybe the next morning while I'm waiting for my coffee to brew, I'll feel the need to rearrange my refrigerator magnets.
Camerin welcomes your feedback and brainstorms at:
SinglesNewsletter@ChristianityToday.com
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Copyright © 2002 ChristianityToday.com
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