While people argue about the definition of love or even if it exists at all, there’s one thing that’s certain: the media loves using love. “Romance” is a prominent genre that includes any and every type of love. Although that isn’t bad, it leads to an evolution of this misrepresented idea of love.

Do books and movies help people understand love through soulmates and the popular enemies to lovers? Is there something that’s being oversimplified? Real relationships can be affected by fake representations of love, Junior Callista Santiago mentions this skewed perspective.

“I absolutely do not think love is accurately portrayed in media. Love comes in a wide variety of different forms, but what you tend to see in media is oversimplified, unrealistically romantic love,” Santiago said.

According to maristpoll.marist.edu, 73% of Americans believe in soulmates. There could be a more in depth reasoning to why people are attached to love as simple as soulmates together forever. Psychology teacher Bryan Szweda shares his thoughts on why media creates misconceptions of love through an analytical lens.

“A lot of media portrays love as something that is quick and easy and has no consequences to decisions that are made. It’s not necessarily realistic. It can make it something hard to attain in the way they portray it,” Szweda said.

Misconceptions have been prevalent even before social media and popular movies became well known for their romanticization. Any form of love in the media can be deconstructed to an inaccurate portrayal of maintaining relationships. Librarian Christopher Rios shares how relationships can be maintained in a healthy way.

“There’s this whole thing of “the one.” To expect someone to be everything you want I think is unrealistic, there’s a give and take in any relationship. Relationships take work, they take patience and understanding,” Rios said.

There are ways to get an accurate representation of any type of love people search for, Szweda goes into depth.

“I think you can learn through observation, look at the relationships around you that are stable and loving and understand that love doesn’t mean everything’s going to be great all of the time,” Szweda said.

Even though there are often toxic portrayals of love in the media, maybe there’s a reason: entertainment. Sophomore Jack Sifuentes shares how the media portrays love isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“The way that the media portrays love is actually entertaining. If we see something that we deal with every day, then we wouldn’t find it entertaining. The reason why the media presents love in these ways is because it’s the easiest way to gain money from viewers like us,” Sifuentes said.

Besides entertainment, love can be accurately viewed and represented in a more realistic way, like how Senior Delaney Wells adds.

“I really enjoyed how ‘’Normal People’’ portrayed it, it showed more of the dark sides, I think everyone takes a portion of responsibility, we like to romanticize things that shouldn’t be romanticized,” Wells said.

As a society, people should start treating the media as a distant ex and separating themselves from the idea that love is a simple, magical thing. In reality, love is undefined and challenging, yet rewarding at the same time. The real soulmates are the ones formed through hard working relationships, not through stories.