In Love Story, one of the most definitive cinematic dramas of the 1970’s, American actress Ali McGraw proclaimed to our parent’s generation that “love means never having to say you’re sorry.” That particular line has resurfaced and survived over the subsequent decades, invading high school-aged girl’s science notebooks, making it’s ranks through the internet boom into “away messages”, AOL profiles, and finally, creeping into our facebook quotation sections and twitter updates. It is highly regarded as one of the most famous lines from one of the most iconic films of the 20th century.

It is also complete and utter bullshit, and probably more than partially responsible for the sky-high divorce rate of people in my parent’s generation.

There is a curious trend that has invaded popular and social culture over the past several decades. From Ali McGraw’s proclamation that we should take our loved one’s transgressions in graceful stride, a funny social more has burrowed its way into our lives and relationships: if you really love somebody, you’d never burden them with pesky little things like your thoughts and feelings, however justified or unjustified they may be.

Once upon a time, when I was participating in the particularly soul-sucking  practice of what is known as ‘internet dating’, it was standard fare for every female to include a passage or two advertising the fact that she was ‘drama-free’, and for every male to specify that he was looking for someone ‘low maintenance, low drama’. It has become the expected norm in dating and relationships that both parties create an environment that’s light-hearted, hassle-free, fun, interesting, intriguing, and seductive. We are taught that the constant projection of our coolest, smartest, sexiest selves is the key to attracting and keeping love in our lives.

  Like Love Story, the only ‘drama’ that should ever enter the picture should be completely up to fate, like having poor parents or getting Leukemia at age 25. These are the only acceptable obstacles, because there is no one’s pride, or jealousy, or insecurity to blame for the hardships they create. It’s ok to be angry at a situation no one had control over in the first place, it’s NOT ok to be angry with your partner because, for one reason or another, they’ve chosen to show you one of the shittier aspects of themselves as a human being, and it upset you. Love means never having to say you’re sorry, and you better keep your mouth shut.

It always amazes and horrifies me at the same time the way legitimate human emotion is so often dismissed as (eye roll)…drama. ”I was sleeping with her for a few months and she told me she had feelings for me…uhg, drama!” “Just because Joe and I used to sleep together in college, Jim gets so angry if we hang out or talk…he always has to create so much drama.” Oh, the inconvenience of having to acknowledge the existence of anyone’s feelings but our own! Just the word itself - feelings - conjures up images of imbecile sitcom husbands looking on at their hypersensitive, weeping wife, dumbfounded as to why she’s so upset that he forgot their anniversary. Feelings are for people who can’t control themselves. Feelings are for weak people. If you can’t deal with them by yourself, you’re a nuisance to the one you love, and you should probably stop trying to ruin their day with all your petty “drama.” 

If you are currently in, or working towards, a completely sanitized, laid-back, devil-may-care relationship where both parties martyr any bad feelings that pop up to remain ‘drama-free’, you are dead. Or, less extreme, you are asleep, waiting to be rudely yanked out of your bed when the day comes that you implode and completely break down as a person from all that drama you “saved” your relationship from by never speaking your mind, or demanding an apology. You deprive yourself of the ridiculously stupid joy that comes from looking someone squarely in the eye at their ugliest, most unreasonable self, and realizing you that you actually love an entire, complete person. You deprive yourself of the comfort and ultimate acceptance that comes when the person you love returns that same favor. 

Really knowing someone means knowing what makes them tick, and what buttons to push to force their hearts into their stomachs. Loving someone means refraining from pushing those buttons, at least 90% of the time. Really knowing and really loving someone means apologizing for that other 10% of the time you were acting like a self-centered, spiteful child who just wanted to push all the buttons at once to get attention. If you are not screwing up, you are not human. If you are not fighting, you are not alive. Your quest to be the coolest, drama-free guy or girl on the block will leave you empty and alone, because you will constantly be searching for a fake happiness in a sea of very messy, very real people. For two people to create something real in a world that is consistently trying to tell you that love means never having to bother with anything besides keeping your sex life good and your social life fun is, in borrowed words from the poet e e cummings, to ‘fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.’ 

With real, full acceptance of another person comes the acceptance and love of all the drama that accompanies their innermost monologue of doubt, fear, hatred, and insecurity, and the hope that they’ll accept and love yours in return. That you’ll forgive each other for constantly falling short of this acceptance. Realizing that the fight never stops, but that it’s worth it to have someone at your side who is fighting as hard as you are.

Love means always having to say you’re sorry. 

You said that the more you know about someone, the less you will like them. You were right. 

When you entered my life, you had all the bravado of stopping for a pack of cigarettes. I lit up, not knowing or caring whether you smoked, or if you would disapprove. You sat across from me, one arm clutching the other in front of you, playful eyes sizing me up, tattoos peeking out of your conservative sweater and tie set. I dare you, they said. I hate you, they said. I smiled, and smoked another cigarette. You were so fucking sexy, and I’d seen you a hundred times before. I knew what to do, and what kind of game you liked to play, the one where both people pretend to be playing no game at all. It was cute. We were so cute, sitting there, so grown-up and safe and wise. 

A friend asked me how my date went. I was surprised you hadn’t tried to fuck me. I told them you didn’t drink, were a mediocre kisser, and that you would last three weeks, even though only one of those statements held any weight in the end. It wasn’t that I disliked you. I just already knew who you were, until I didn’t.

The more you know about someone, the less you will like them. I can’t deny you were right. I liked the dark, brooding, moody, hot guy act, I guess - that alone could have sustained at least three weeks of near-perfect likability. I wanted to sleep with you. I figured after that, I could start figuring out my exit strategy. That’s how these things worked. That’s how people like us did things, smart, sexy, likable people that we were. We used all the right buzz words and phrases, like ‘complicated’ and ‘casual’, ‘non-exclusive’, ‘just having fun’. We bathed ourselves in that golden glow of pseudo-wisdom, tossing our heads back, tight young skin on our faces interrupted only by the crinkle of a sly smile or a seductive laugh. My skin was smooth, my hair was long and soft and you would lie on top of me with your ochre eyes trying at once to avoid me and crush me if I met their gaze for a few brief moments. I liked feeling you grunt and sigh and push into me. It was all very dirty and lovely and I sank into it like a dusty couch in an old apartment building.

You became jealous. I became angry. You became insecure and I became demanding. You told me you had children. I told you things over the phone I could never bear to get out to your face. You told me I wasn’t the only one, and I told you I couldn’t give a fuck. I pushed, you pulled. You put me in an impossible situation and I gave you silent ultimatums. I pissed you off. You pouted silently. You cancelled dates. I stopped talking. I told you I had to leave, and you let me go. I asked you to forgive me, and you did. Twice. I hated you. You cursed me. I asked you the same questions over and over again and you gave me the same vague replies. I pushed your buttons. You gave me knots in my gut. I cried. You made me question everything. 

I stopped liking you. I started loving you.

A year later you sleep beside me and in the mornings I can barely tear myself away from you and out of bed. I don’t want more sleep. I want more you. I will always want more you. You make me feel things I don’t like at all. I look at you, and life is precious and fragile again because any day now, you may not be in it, and I don’t like that at all. My biggest fear is losing you and having all of you. I don’t want to like you. I don’t want to tie you up into a perfectly wrapped little box of likability that sits placidly in it’s right place. I want you like money left in winter coat pockets, continually losing and finding without it ever completely adding up. 

You said the more you know about someone, the less you will like them. You were right, and I’m so glad I never liked you.

My mother was recently in Philadelphia to visit over the weekend, as she does a few times a year. My mother is lovely, strong, and hilarious woman who I love more than anything in the world. She is also a staunch Catholic, and raised me to be the same, which, to her credit, I was for the better part of 18 or 19 years. 

Unfortunately for her, my mother also raised me to think for myself.

We were cooking dinner early in the evening. I had invited my long(ish)-term boyfriend over so that she could finally meet him, having heard a lot about him from me, but due to the fact that I live over four hours away from my immediate family, she had yet to meet him. We were chit chatting about him while cooking, and I started to quasi-gush about how much we had in common, how intelligent I found him to be, and how we had experience similar upbringings, having been deeply religious for the better part of our young lives until, as I think I put it, “we both finally discovered that we were atheists.” Which, in my mind, was as casual of a comment as saying that we both were really into stand-up comedy, or books about psychology. 

My mom didn’t take it quite so casually.

For the past 5 or 6 years after leaving home, I’ve made it abundantly clear to my mother that I no longer had any need or interest in religion. I’ve also spent a lot of energy intentionally dodging her comments and discussions about religion in general, mostly out of respect for what I know is her extremely strong faith in and commitment to the Catholic church. I respect that, because I respect my mother, probably more than most people I know. Because my mom is an open-minded, generous, and loving person who just wants to give love to everyone, and lives to take care of others. I credit my mother for her strength of character, which she has earned through a lot of pain in our lives. So I was a bit thrown off when I heard her say:

“What? …. you’re an atheist? But…but that’s…evil!”

She gave me this look that said “Where the hell did I go wrong? How could you have ended up like this?” 

I wasn’t sure what to say. Living in such a diverse city, with most of my friends being actors, artists, writers, and other creative types, I’m never quite met with that kind of response, if anyone even bats an eye to begin with. My mother had known that over the past several years I had abandoned the Catholic church and eventually all religion in general, but I guess she wasn’t quite prepared for the dreaded A-word.

“You…no. You are NOT one of THOSE people,” she said.

Those people. I thought about the images of atheists that I presented with while growing up. I can remember a controversy, splashed all over the front page of our little Central Pennsylvania town’s newspaper proclaiming that the a “minority group of atheists” were seeking to hijack a local Christmas parade by entering a float, with winter solstice or some other secular theme. It received a lot of attention that year, with letters to the editor being written. I remember my mom talking to us, and her church friends about it. Her anger. Why do those people have to ruin it for everyone? If they don’t believe anything, why do they have to shove it down everyone’s throats that do? 

For the record, to this day, I am not, and never will be, the kind of atheist that joins any sort of atheist network or group. I find it pointless to advertise atheism in a sensational manner during traditional religious holiday times. Some people latch onto atheism (or really any way of thinking) and feel that it’s their duty to “spread the truth” to all those who need to be saved from the horrors of religion. I’ve never been one of those people, and although “atheist” is the correct nomenclature for my technical spiritual standing, I prefer to just call myself a non-believer. I don’t need an parades, or organized groups, or nationally recognized days of awareness to promote the fact that I don’t believe in any sort of god. Lack of belief in supernatural beings seems, to me, to be such a non-event. One of the reasons I abandoned religion and faith was because of the pointless ritual, dogma, and propaganda associated with it. Which is why I am uncomfortable with public “atheist groups” who demonstrate in such ways to draw people to the “cause.” It’s not a cause, it’s a conclusion, a conclusion that an ever-growing population of people all over the word are arriving at, accepting, and then just living their lives in an overwhelmingly normal, civilized, and moral manner. 

Even if I feel judged by people’s response to my lack of belief, I never take it too personally, or feel the need to justify. No one is going to talk me out of it, and I’m not trying to talk anyone into it, so debate and argument - for myself, anyway - is pretty pointless. I respect everyone’s right to belief or non-belief. Yet, that look on my mother’s face - it revealed to me every way that atheists are maligned by those who don’t understand that it is an under-whelmingly simple concept: I don’t believe in any sort of god. No, it’s not Satanism, because that would imply a belief in a supernatural being - Satan - which directly contradicts non-belief in the supernatural. It’s not Pagan, or witchcraft, or Voodoo. It’s not (for your average, run of the mill Joe The Atheist) some organized militia out to take away your rights to believe in whatever it is you want to believe in. Because I respect your right to believe whatever you want. I might not respect your actual beliefs, but I respect you, and feel you should be allowed to hold them, as homophobic, or sexist, xenophobic, irrational, unscientific, logically flawed, historically unsupported as they may be. Why? Because I realize that I believe in a lot of things that can’t necessarily be measured by science. I believe that my best friend will always have my back, that most people are interesting and decent, and that human love is a thoroughly fucked up, irrational, crazy, and wonderful real thing that exists. 

I could go into all the reasons why I’m a non-believer, but I’m not here to convert. If you want to know, I’d be happy to discuss it till the cows come home. I don’t find religion reprehensible for the most part, but I do find it fascinating, and at certain turns entertaining. I also find elements of it dangerous, damaging, and repressive, but misuse of anything, no matter how good it is, can occur in any society, so I don’t find it necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

I’m a daughter. I’m a friend, a sister, a girlfriend, a travel agent, a writer, an occasional stand-up comedian, singer, and former beauty queen. I’m college educated, I have a full time job, I pay my bills and pay my taxes, I love my family, and I strive every day to better myself even if it’s in a small way. I have boundless empathy for the human spirit and am capable of boundless, unconditional love. I am endlessly inquisitive, I read voraciously, I have a quick wit and a very forgiving heart. I love life, and I love the world that we live in, as screwed up as it is. I am not a saint. But I am intelligent, decent, and kind.

I am an atheist. I am not evil. The two are not synonymous. 

There is man and he

sits quietly now

with pictures on his arms,

and he believes that he

is like the all-knowing 

god, recently abandoned

I must laugh for if I don’t,

he will know that I know,

what he doesn’t.

and if gods be not true

(of which we have no proof

and therefore, no need

of question) 

then why the rage?

we laugh, you and I

at the foolish believing

they say their experience with god

is their undeniable proof.

How can they know? You say.

But you sit with pictures

on your arms 

you wear your heart on your collarbone,

and you rage,

because you look at the women who pass by 

because of all that you know to be true.

You say, your experience

is your undeniable proof.

The unknowable,

to you

is still too much to bear

so you

make up your own instead.