Amatonormativity: All love is equal, but some types of love are more equal than others.
Image by @tragicgirlsco
This past summer, I had quite a strange experience. A new one at that, even if novelty tends to taper off the older you get. This one occurrence was something me and the guy from the story hadn’t experienced before to the extent that we didn’t know how to properly put it into words. For privacy, I will not disclose his name, and for ease I will use the letter Q (which, if you ask me, should be placed at the end of the alphabet with the other weirdo letters). I would like to preface here that what I will be discussing, concerns heterosexual and monogamous relationships, since that is what I have experienced for the most part and feel like I can speak about.
I had met Q at a house party a few months prior and I felt like we got along very well from the moment we started talking to each other. I thought this was quite special and so I asked for his number. Now, I am not clueless, I knew how this could come across. He wrote down his number in my phone and mentioned that we should go on a date sometime. My intention, however, was not romantic. The conversation didn't have a single flirty undertone to it. I told him I wasn’t looking to date, which led him to swiftly close our discussion. He said, “ok then let’s see each other at parties” and quickly blended into the crowd.
I thought to myself that this couldn’t be it. Is that the only way this could go? Is this the only option for a guy and a girl? It felt almost algorithmic in my head:
if (guy & girl)
cout << “go on a date”
else
… no, that’s it.
I decided that this shouldn’t be the end; we had fun talking, so why miss out on a possibly great friendship?
Some time had passed since the party and I thought maybe he had forgotten about his date proposal. I proceeded to message him and ask if he’d like to hang out. We ended up meeting up and again it was a great time. I felt, however, the need to disclose that I just wanted to be friends.
Me: “I know that you said that one time that you wanted to go on a date with me, but I just wanted to be clear that I want us to be just friends.”
Q: “No, I thought you liked me…Why else would you ask for my number and then message me after all this time?”
This exchange of words truly perplexed me. I found it so strange that we both felt somewhat pressured to develop a crush on each other simply because I am a girl and he is a guy and we got along particularly well.
Little did I know that this push to partake in romantic relationships, whether internally or externally motivated, has a name. Amatonormativity; a neologism so new that the Word document I drafted this article in underlined it with that dismissive red squiggly line. This refers to the social construct that believes everyone prospers with an exclusive romantic relationship, and encourages the prioritization of romantic love over all other types of relationships. The term was coined by Elizabeth Brake, an American philosopher (so there is hope for those of us with humanities degrees to actually use them).
Well, amatonormativity sprouts up in many parts of daily life. For example, on Youtube shorts (which a friend of mine once called the vape of Youtube), there was an overflow of street interviews in which coupled and married men were asked: “Your house is on fire, who are you saving: your mom or your girlfriend/wife?” and many of them, after some deliberation, said their partner. Now why is that? Or another question, do your parents have any friends? Or has a friend ever gotten into a relationship and slowly faded from your life?
Why do we do this to ourselves and to each other? It’s not only language that is not fully equipped for these conversations, but also people are sometimes not ready for certain topics, not because of personal deficiencies or lack of understanding, but more so because there had not been enough of a demand or desire to challenge or change the views and narratives widely endorsed by society, relatives or even ourselves.
To a certain extent, why would such norms be questioned? They have been working well so far, so why should they change now. But have they?
It is not difficult to understand, though, where this problem comes from. We can easily trace back to the incentives that make us privilege love above most else. Since love is mostly seen as a deeply emotional matter, its more practical implications wouldn't be the first thing we think about. For example, do you know how many tax benefits come with marriage? Is the “I do” short for “I do want to be on your retirement plan”? Or maybe regarding something that we have encountered a lot in the hellscape of Amsterdam’s housing crisis; how many times have you been on Funda or Pararius or Facebook (I’m sorry you had to go through all this) and saw an apartment listing that allowed couples only? I personally know two girl friends of mine that pretended they were lesbians when they went in for a viewing; and guess what…they got the place. Now, whether they had to awkwardly hold hands whenever the landlord would pass by for maintenance during their rental term is none of my business. Landlords see couples as more reliable and long-term renters and prefer it over a group of pals trying to scrape together enough money for a deposit. But is friendship really that much flimsier than love that it could screw you out of a place to live, or is it just our underestimation of friendship that makes us assume this?
Institutionalized manifestations of love, such as couples, but most importantly marriage, are productive; and in a capitalist world (within which we all reside) productivity reigns supreme. Conversely, friendship is quite aimless and barren. There is not really a purpose or end to friendship. Dissimilar to love, in platonic relationships, there isn’t this sense of leveling up, of going from friend to best friend to best friend 2.0 and so on, but more so a broadening and deepening of trust and bond. And while you can say that the same goes for romantic love, you can also not deny the somewhat “game-like” progression that traditional love implies. The Pokémon-esque evolution from Dating to Fiancé to Spouse to becoming Parents is inarguable…fuck it, they even have relics and rituals along the way: rings, weddings and…kids??? This desire for “more” can come from within but it is undeniably enforced by the constant nudging of our peers and relatives through routine remarks such as “You guys have been dating for years, when are you getting married?” or “Congratulations on getting married! So…when should we be expecting some grandkids?”
Romantic relationships not only elevate your place in the economic and financial landscape, but also affirm your maturity. Love is often seen as a sign of having your life together. How many times does Adam Sandler have to play the role of a man-child who only graduates to being a full grown, responsible adult only after falling in love and settling down with a female character (who is most often played by an actress who is waaaaay out of his league) for us to see this? The reason for this is that committed relationships are seen as a box on our checklist of what it means to be successful; might as well put “Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Partner” on our CV’s. And of course, this pressure goes for everyone, not just Adam Sandler’s characters. From personal experience (maybe it has to do with me being from Eastern Europe), every conversation I have on the phone with my mom ends with “and make sure to find yourself a boyfriend, you know, I met your dad around your age”. Maybe she should make this her voice mail, for ease.
One other way in which romantic love is seen as more worthwhile than platonic love is through procreation (putting the “productive” in “reproductive” ;) ). In particular, concerning heterosexual and especially monogamous couples, the avenue of procreation is what makes this kind of relationship seem more purposeful than others and it is also how it has secured its place as the most represented and revered one by society. What is more noble and beneficial for the capitalist machine than adding more participants to it? At the societal scale, having kids is seen as a wholesome venture that is duly rewarded in many: discounted health insurance, government housing support and of course, family sized bags of Lays chips. It is interpersonally and even intrapersonally still commended as an admirable or even heroic feat. Ernest Becker, American cultural anthropologist and author of “The Denial of Death” which won him a Pulitzer Prize, states that having children can act as a way of proving oneself as a competent, well-adjusted and responsible adult. Not only is offspring a symbol of aptitude to display to others, but also to oneself. As Becker puts it, extending oneself through genetic lineage is a manifestation of narcissism disguised as the cultural heroism of prolonging the existence of humanity. Fulfilling this imperative, of course, comes at a cost: namely at the expense of women, as they by and large take on the anatomical burden of carrying and caring for the children.
We could comprehend why romantic love is put on a pedestal in society and media, by looking at the relationship between men and women. What about it impedes us from being just friends? Although it takes two to tango, it seems that, in the heterosexual world, it is most often the case that men are the ones who can't seem to keep things as solely platonic. Q turned out to be no exception:
Q: "Why would a guy talk to a girl if he doesn't want to go out with her?"
Me: "I don't know…to be friends"
Q: "Do you talk to guys because you want to be JUST friends?"
Me: "Yes"
And a short silence followed, permeated by his confusion and my dismay.
In many societies, straight men often see women as just a romantic or sexual pursuit and only consider other men for their friend pool. This attitude in turn makes men objectify women by seeing sex as a main incentive for interaction. This only adds to the transactional trajectory that our relationships seem to be heading towards in our modern and capitalist world. In the job market, what is the appeal of a position without prospect for promotion? And similarly, in my example, what is the point of continuing the conversation as friends, when there’s no hope for more?
Alongside objectification is men’s tendency to mystify women, which further takes away from them being perceived as human. I think we have seen those tweets floating around of "let a man speak about himself uninterrupted for 10 minutes and he'll tell you "you know, I really like you", without really having asked anything about the girl or knowing much about her. This phenomenon is quite obvious also in the trope of the “Manic Pixie Dream” girl (think of Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). The male characters rarely inquire about the girl's interests, aspirations and desires and simply deem her as a mystery, stunting the growth of actual connection beyond looks and assumed allure. Not having female friends and only limiting oneself to solely male friends can easily lead to what we see now as the "male loneliness epidemic". It’s not very surprising is it? Put a bunch of guys together who have been told all their lives to suppress their emotions and they will only exacerbate this expectation for each other. This actually reminds me of something Q said:
Q: “I don’t think that guys and girls can be just friends”
Me: “Maybe you say that because you haven’t even tried to see girls as actual people and potential friends.”
I was so disappointed to see that someone who I had considered an intelligent and funny person was guilty of holding such close-minded opinions. I thought that maybe this wasn’t in fact what he believed in whole-heartedly, but more so a parroting of what has been instilled in all of us since we were kids. So I thought that explaining my view on heterosexual friendships would make him see that there can truly be no ulterior motive to such relationships and that they would still be worthwhile.
Me: “When I was younger I started to notice this pattern of men and women interacting with each other with the end goal of being together. Most often the relationship wouldn’t last long and they would also stop speaking to each other. And I thought what a waste of what could have been a long lasting friendship. So, I tried to unlearn this and stop myself from seeing guys as only romantic interests. Now it comes quite naturally to me. I wanted to be friends with you; I think we get along well. ”
I will be honest; it took quite a lot of effort for me to piece together my thoughts and it also required a lot of vulnerability to share my experiences that I had only kept to myself until then. This one sided emotional work is too often delegated to women…but they do not owe men free empathy courses, or lessons on how to others as fully fledged people beyond their designation as sex partners. More and more women have realized that this is not what they have signed up for when entering relationships and hence why we see trends such as embracing celibacy being more prevalent on social media. Since a lot of straight men's primary source of emotional support/closeness comes from women (from their mothers and thereafter, from their girlfriends/wives), this resignation from women can feel as a breach of an unspoken contract between men and women. This only furthers the divide between the sexes and adds fuel to the fire by creating animosity or even resentment towards each other.
Q: “Ok, well I can see what you mean, but I feel like I don’t fully understand this. Or at least I don’t get it yet.”
What I would like to highlight, however, is that men tend to not see women as human out of principle, whereas women start to dehumanize men as a response to themselves having been dehumanized for so long. Men’s tendency to disregard women’s humanity and personhood is not intrinsic, but taught. It is also not hard to grasp how women, who are more encouraged to partake in beautifying procedures and practices, are essentially denying themselves the luxury of human error. Our natural physical traits such as body hair or skin flaws are condemned and end up being seen as something different than simply human.
I would like to triumphantly end this article with a solution and not by just showcasing another problem. The reality, however, is that amatonormativity is extensive and intricately weaved into all facets of life; therefore it takes a joint effort to uproot it from our collective consciousness. Through bringing more awareness to this facet of our social world, we could start investigating our relationship with relationships. It is worth unlearning these principles that give way to negative and destructive dynamics between ourselves.
And if you were wondering what happened to me and Q, we lived happily ever after…as just friends :). We talk and see each other often and he’s told me that he has made other girl friends since. Some conversations and topics, although awkward, can lead to changes that last a lot longer than the discomfort that it took to speak up about them. It is only through action and open-mindedness that we can improve the world we experience everyday.
