alright
let me preface this by saying i am on the aromantic spectrum, so i’m aware my perspective may be different from others
also the question is a lil bit vague so many thoughts but for the sake of finishing this someday i’m gonna keep it to romantic love
i do think books can teach someone about love
they can’t teach us how it feels exactly because, let’s be real, who can define exactly what a feeling is? all the sensations and thoughts they bring? every person experiences love differently, so they can’t exactly give us a cookie-cutter version of “love” and go “yes, this is what it is”
they also can’t teach us about what a perfect relationship looks like because… well different people have different love goals and all that, and what may fit someone may not fit someone else
but books can teach us about love
let’s take a look at Pride and Prejudice for example, if we want a… quite popular reference in romance books
i adore Austen and her work, i think no romance writer has stuck with me quite like she has
i first read the book when i was fifteen
and it taught me that i thought that romance was pointless and dumb and a waste of time
or well, dropping the book halfway and not ever finishing taught me that
still, the experience of reading it taught me how i felt over romantic topics
so
point 1: the experience of reading a book can teach us about our own perspectives in love
a similar thing happened to me with Romeo and Juliet by Willian Shakespeare
this play shaped how i saw romantic love for a very long time
both main characters were so painfully dumb to me
it made no sense that they’d go through all that because of “love” (i’m gonna leave my rant about how this is more an infatuation than love for later)
and for YEARS i would roll my eyes and express disdain anything that would have to do with love: love was juvenile and dumb, the play that’s often acclaimed as an iconic romance taught me so
point 2: books can shape our thoughts and perspective on love
but let’s go back to Jane Austen for a minute
i re-read (and finished) Pride and Prejudice at age nineteen (yes, it took me four years to pick it back up and finish it, and it was only bc it was required for a class)
and man
to quote Austen: till that moment i never knew myself
reading it a second time, older and after having some more real life experience with love irl… well it changed me
now it’s one of my favourite books
mostly because i can see myself a lot in Mr Darcy
re-reading P&P quite literally made me aware of things about myself i had never noticed, including things about my… complete lack of knowledge in human relationships and feelings
while reading Darcy’s growth i could see myself there, and i could see the direction i wanted to grow towards
there’s a reason i am sending my friends letters this year
also, i say this as a joke but… tbh i’m also like Darcy in the fact that i’m absolutely in love with Miss Elizabeth Bennett
so
point 3: books can teach us where we stand when it comes to our own feelings (there’s A LOT of literary theory on this dfjvbf but if you’re interested, DM me, please, i have a lot to talk about)
point 4: books can teach us how we wanna be when it comes to love, and that can help us work towards it
point 5: books can teach us what kind of people we may be into
now, i’m gonna branch out and move towards non-romance books:
starting with The Lord of the Rings
the relationship between Sam and Frodo, however you may interpret it, as well as the one between Legolas and Gimli?
those opened my eyes
i have no doubt those two pairs love each other
how do they love each other? i haven’t got the foggiest idea
but they do love each other
point 6: books can teach us that love comes in many forms, be it friends who have known each other through all their lives or two people who got stuck together and started out disliking each other, love is just something that happens (and (point 7:) it motivates people to do what may seem impossible so it should be celebrated)
lastly, i’m going to mention my favourite romantic reference: Good Omens (because you can’t tell me Crowley and Aziraphale aren’t in love with one another)
the relationship in Good Omens is lovely, it’s not stated obviously, but iirc Neil Gaiman has stated that they are in love (y’all should follow him on tumblr btw, he’s amazing)
and up to this point, now that i’m… two months shy of turning twenty-two years old… that is the relationship that makes me go “i want that”
so
point 8: books teach us about our ideals in love
and, in my case, it gives us hope that maybe, just maybe what we want is possible
now, i know this is long already (i’m sorry, props to you if you’ve read this far) but i wanna talk about writing books for a second
writing is always a process of self discovery
so why shouldn’t it help up learn about ourselves and love in the process?
it has helped me, after all