Modern Love, What's That?

Long gone are the days of typical rom-com chick flicks. In today's digital age of sliding into dms or swiping right on the person you fancy, our guilty pleasure, too, has evolved

- Jamie Lee

A few months ago, a friend of mine was complaining to me how there were no good modern rom-coms anymore — the ones out there were either grimly realistic or so idealistic as to verge on fantasy. If you wanted something intense, you would watch Marriage Story — a gripping if depressing portrayal of a couple going through a divorce. Or if you wanted something more uplifting, you would watch book-to-movie adaptations like To All The Boys or slightly more under-the-radar films like The Worst Person In The World. Even the timelapse genre, with the film 20th Century Girl and the Netflix series First Love, simply capture the essence of the past, instead of looking to the future.

Indeed, there is something so comforting about movies from the 1990s to 2000s like 10 Things I Hate About You, TV dramas like Gilmore Girls or even reality dating series like The Bachelor and We Got Married. They did the job of producing slightly corny but satisfying entertainment that took us right back to what love could be: simple and beautiful, but just grounded enough to make us hope for it.

Today, the rise of social media and the proliferation of dating apps have shifted the way we perceive love as well as how we act in our relationships. New terms like “ghosting”, “couple goals” and “cuffing season” have popped up along with plenty of new-age dating advice. They now dominate and elevate our idealistic standards of relationships and love.