There is a common fear of reaching a plateau where there is less sex... some choose to start rifts
Love isn’t supposed to be easy. At least, that’s what we’ve been told. Think about it: Sex and the City would be dull if Carrie and Big stayed together, Gossip Girl wouldn’t have been as compelling were it not for the toxic back and forth between Chuck and Blair, even Friends would be flattened if Ross and Rachel hadn’t gone on a break.
Other people’s relationships are fascinating on-screen fodder, but much more so when they are complicated by countless breakups and reconciliations, each one more dramatic than the next.
That push-pull dynamic is the premise for Normal People, Sally Rooney’s best-selling novel that has become one of the most-hyped TV adaptations of the year. The BBC Three series, like the book, follows the ebbs and flows of the relationship between Marianne and Connell through their school years into young adulthood.
The duo navigate class and social differences — Marianne is wealthy and severe; Connell working-class and popular — and weave in and out of one another’s lives with beautiful symmetry, always finding themselves back in each other’s arms.
The series has been hailed by viewers for its realistic sex scenes and uncanny casting, with actors Daisy Edgar-jones and Paul Mescal slotting neatly into fans’ high expectations. But what makes the series so absorbing is the will-they-won’t-they relationship between Marianne and Connell, leaving the viewer in a perpetual state of fulfilment and frustration.
“There’s no drama in falling in love and then staying that way forever,” says sociologist and cultural critic Ellis Cashmore, who believes that the reason we enjoy watching or reading about on-off relationships taps into a very basic human paradox about love.
“The staccato relationship with separations and raging rows is much more entertaining because it makes us feel more secure about our own relationships while also feeding our craving for excitement and the very lack of stability we’re glad to have.”
This, Cashmore explains, is why the relationship between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who famously married and divorced twice, is widely considered one of the greatest love affairs of the 20th century.
“Their romance was played out as if it had been scripted for a major drama, and we lapped it up like we do with others because we don’t have to endure their torment, but can yearn for their all-consuming passion from afar, one that will lift us like a tornado and whisk us away from our mundane lives.”
In the midst of a pandemic, it’s safe to say that people need whisking away now more than ever before.
The timing, then, for Normal People could not have been better, giving us an opportunity to sink into a love story so intense that it provides a temporary distraction from the chaos unfolding around us. But why does it lure us in so much? Do we simply like to watch these relationships, or do we also want to emulate them?
If the latter is indeed the case, perhaps we would be wise to go against our instincts. A 2018 study by researchers at the University of Missouri found that on-off relationships can be toxic for our mental well-being, linking them to higher rates of abuse, low levels of commitment and poor communication.
We see this play out in Normal People. Connell’s social rejection of Marianne — he insists they keep their relationship hidden from their friends — leaves longterm scars and validates her own sense of worthlessness, feelings that later manifest in submissive sexual predilections.
Then, when the pair reunite as university students, there are torturous “off ” and “on” periods largely fuelled by their failure to communicate their feelings to one another. The characters behave dysfunctionally in both. In the off periods, one is usually secretly pining after the other despite being in a relationship with someone else. In the on periods, their passion is fervid, frantic, and unsustainable.
And yet, it seems like this is a relationship we are supposed to want, because what Marianne and Connell have, Rooney’s book suggests, is a life-altering love. And as destructive as it is, it’s hard not to long for such transcendental passion.
The idea that love is validated when it is hard-earned is nothing new. Whether you’re reading Shakespeare, watching a Richard Curtis film, or listening to Adele, popular culture perpetuates the myth that in romance, turbulence is a sign of a more meaningful relationship. And
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