Modern Love talks about many kinds of love. It touches on self-love, platonic love, unfinished love, untested love, old love, and paternal love. This article specifically focuses on romantic love, showcased in the series and the 10 accurate pieces of dating advice derived from it. What can you say, sometimes you have to listen to individual experiences narrated by a successful TV show.
You Can Have Both Smart And Good Looking
How many of us have been guilty of choosing the good looking person over the smart person? Let’s just admit it, we do it all the time to ourselves, we are guilty of the crime just like Maggie Mitchell from “When The Doorman Is Your Main Man.”
Even though she’s a smart woman with a Ph.D., she thinks she can’t get a guy who’s well-read and good looking. So she does what most of us are guilty of, settles for the bum, Ted. He’s a guy who barely reads a book a year. It’s possible to have both good looking and smart, it can be a fairy tale if that’s what you want to call it. Just don’t settle.
Who Cares How Your Parents Did Things?
A lot of us are guilty of projecting our parents’ love stories upon ourselves. We think it’s safe and morally sound to do what our parents did and how they did things when they were our age.
From the episode, “When The Doorman Is Your Main Man”, Maggie is emotionally disheveled after learning she’s going to have a baby. She doesn’t want a baby with a man she has no intention of staying with. Maggie thinks it’s essential for a baby to be raised by two parents and feels her baby should be raised the way she was by her parents. Guzmin interjects her at this point saying, “Who cares how your parents did things?”
You Need To Come Clean With Your Partner About Unresolved Feelings
A lot of the times people just stick around pointlessly. People are together because they fear being by themselves. So even when they don’t love each other, they are still together.
From “When The Cupid Is A Prying Journalist”, Dev Patel’s Joshua is with a woman he doesn’t love. It’s pretty selfish of him to lead on a girl without telling her the truth. According to Joshua, she’s the kind of girl he’s always wanted, ticks every box of his. But she isn’t Emma. It’s when Catherine Keener’s Julie advises him to come clean with her, we know that he has indeed spoken to her. It’s too late by then, but better late than never.
You Will Never Rest If You Don’t At least Give It A Shot
Never give up upon the people you love, even when the circumstances advise you otherwise. The person who makes you feel alive is the one you should be with. Even when things have gone sour, that person is worth a shot. Not knowing only messes you up, and it’s hard to carry the weight of ‘what if’ around all your life.
From “When The Cupid Is A Prying Journalist”, Joshua feels alive when he sees Emma two years later, on the street. Although he admits to meeting bright, funny and caring people in the past two years, none of them compare to Emma. None of them makes him feel the way Emma does. At that moment Joshua realizes he’s always loved, Emma.
Romance Helps Get Through Romantic Pain
Dev Patel’s Joshua makes an astute observation about being in romantic pain. What do people do when they are forced away from the thing they love? Most throw themselves into work, which helps. But once Joshua starts seeing other people again, his faith slowly comes back. It’s a slow recovery, but it leads him somewhere.
It’s ironic what Modern Love says, but it’s true, to say the least. The only thing that helps you get over the pain of losing your partner is romance; reading about it, watching it or researching it. It’s when you truly research the subject, you begin to understand it’s ramifications. People actually generally don’t screw up. There’s always hope.
Make Time For Each Other
It sounds so simple, but it really is a relationship saver. When you are with someone, the two of you need to find shared common ground. It can be anything really, a common hobby, something fun and easy. It’s essential when you are married, raising kids and running a household together.
From “Rallying To Keep The Game Alive”, Tina Fey’s Sarah worries that after her kids are off to college, she and her husband won’t have anything in common. Which is somewhat true, considering how Dennis blocks her out of his life. He makes her feel unwanted and unneeded in his life. They may be doting parents to their kids, but they know separation awaits them, once they are empty nesters.
It’s Never Just Dinner
First off, it’s stupid to think that someone, no matter how old or young to you, will invite you over to their apartment for just dinner. It’s called a date, that’s how things work. And if you don’t want it to be that way, don’t just give them signs, tell them upfront.
“So He Looked Like Dad. It Was Just Dinner, Right?” gives us a peek into a dysfunctional thought process of Madeleine seeking fatherly love through her boss, Peter. There’s nothing wrong about it, except that the other person should be aware and consenting. She continues to see Peter, whilst the latter has zero information on what she’s seeking in him.
Don’t Leave Without An Explanation
Although, Anne Hathaway’s “Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am” talks about self-love, more than romantic love; it also talks about the impact of fleeting moments of catharsis. Leaving behind boyfriends without an explanation holds you back (if it’s your decision to stop being with them) more than it holds them back. Lexi learns that once you tell people your story, they are understanding and kind.
When Lexi finally accepts her condition of bipolarity by telling her old boyfriends why she left, she feels brand new - like a weight has been lifted off of her chest. She feels almost proud of her condition and starts healing.
Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am
The title of this episode itself is a piece of dating advice. Often times to save a relationship, we pretend to be something else. Or we hide our truest self from our partners, thinking it will do the relationship some kind of good. It always does otherwise.
Begin by self-acceptance and turn that into being honest with your partner. It’s difficult to carry around the weight of, what if. “What if he had known, would he have stayed?”, Lexi asks herself. When you finally open up to your partner, it truly tests your love at that moment. If they love you, they should be able to accept you as you are. It’s only that simple.
There’s Always Hope
Modern Love sums up the story in “The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap”. All of the stories come together through Jane Alexander’s Margot. She takes a walk around the city by herself to the tune of Gary Clark and John Carney’s The Lost and Found. It’s a fairly encouraging song told mainly through Margot’s walk and through other characters meeting their happy endings.
The last bit would tell you that even when things seem haywire for a moment, there’s light. Quite metaphorically though, the song says that something is always waiting for us at the lost and found. One should never give up hope for there’s always something good waiting to happen our way.
