In Praise Of Hot Couples
by Alexandra Molotkow
A photo posted by Abel Tesfaye & Bella Hadid (@abelxbella) on Oct 10, 2015 at 1:51am PDT
I’ve posted before about my preoccupation with Michael Hutchence and Kylie Minogue, and lately I’ve been really into abelxbella on Instagram. Like everyone else I love “Trap Queen,” and Old Loves on Tumblr, and one of my favorite songs is “Friends of Mine” by the Zombies and one of my favorite things to do is to hang out with Mr. and Mrs. Haley Mlotek. (Sorry: Haley Mlotek and Daniel Reis, two individuals united by pure love and mutual respect.)
Here’s the thing: a few months ago, a friend said, offhandedly, speaking of a couple she knows, “I don’t know many couples who are unhappy.” And it resonated because even a decade ago, people in relationships were assumed to be unhappy, or at least compromising and a little bored.
More and more, I think, people tend to opt into their partnerships, because why wouldn’t they? All the old reasons for partnering up are, if not moot, increasingly irrelevant: you can have regular sex outside of a committed relationship, you can socialize into adulthood without belonging to a pair. There’s a growing understanding in the general culture that relationships are as varied as people and that often the most functional ones are negotiated rather than slotted.
And then you’re left with two people or more who just like each other, and have decided their Thing is worth coordinating for. How nice is that? I mean it’s full of sorrow and stress and conflict, but what’s life without it.