Fast Food Romance
Humongous sweeping metaphor alert….
Romance in this modern age is like a drive-through window. What you get from them has the appearance of nourishment but is mostly watered-down filler and sugar. And everything comes in disposable containers and wrappers, which is exactly how you want it in your busy life. No need to be burdened with another dish to wash and store. Just open the bag, the wrapper, and take your fill. Once you are done just toss it all in the garbage. If you get hungry again the drive-through window is open 24/7.
Feel like you need a little affection or attention, all you do is pull up at the window of your favorite dating app and either swipe a few times to make a selection or rummage through your past matches to get a quick fix. Maybe you just want a soda to fill you up with sugar or saccharin. Or if you are feeling the need for something more filling you could get some fries or a sandwich. Maybe every once in a while you feel the urge to break your diet of human disconnection and you order a whole meal. You devour it in the car and wash it down with that soda to quench that lingering need for sweetness and then you go to your solitary home or your solitary job where you converse with the television or a computer screen or your children.
You wear earphones as you get your exercise. You keep to your clan of single mothers at the school your child attends. You opt for text over phone calls. The stress piles up and you find release in a ladies’ night where you pretend you’re picking up men for that sense of feeling attractive and desirable. Or maybe it’s just enough to see those men looking at you, hungry. It’s like that salad at McDonalds. It looks and sounds healthy but is there really any nourishment in it?
And why do we have all this fast food? Because we think we are so busy. So busy we cannot be bothered to actually be present to a real interaction with another human who also thinks they are too busy for the same thing. Let’s talk about sports or the weather .. or maybe we get deep and talk politics. It’s mostly meaningless and unfulfilling but it looks and sounds like we are connecting and having a good time. Wash it all down with a little alcohol and call it a night.
Listening to people complain about how hard it is to find a good relationship is the same as listening to them complain about their weight. The answer is to simply forgo fast food, forgo the mindset that makes us think fast food is an option.
Are you ready to quit fast food?