Are we just acting in love?

Yoga, to me, is a beautiful reflection of life. It creates and illuminates so many incredible aspects of what we think and feel, who we are, how we see the world and what we want to become. Occasionally, I'll take a yoga class and have such a crucial moment of awakening, I'm tempted to get off of my mat and embrace the teacher for articulating such wisdom and shining such clarity into my soul. In these moments, I have the urge to express my epiphony to the entire room, to rejoice in my insight and personal growth... A slave to the propriety and etiquette of the yoga studio, I always refrain.

Just this week, I had one such experience. We were resting in child's pose, being lulled into deep relaxation by loud breathes and the soothing words of the teacher moving quietly through the room. He was talking about "acting happy" a yoga philosophy that directs it's practicioners to demonstrate behaviors and emotions they want to experience in their authentic lives. Essentially, the concept suggests that if you act a certain way consistently, eventually you will live the action in an effortless and organic way. True enough, I imagine. The crucial moment for me came once he went on to suggest how this idea transcends other aspects of our experience. Specifically, he said, "if you act like you're in love with someone, chances are, you'll fall in love with them."

I got to thinking about acting in love. I got to thinking about so many other times I've sat down at my computer (or my journal, or a random sheet of crumpled paper from the depths of my college backpack) and written about love. I've written about the cultural myths that frame our aspirations for, and understanding of romance in all of its forms. I've written about the gendered expectations and sexual politics that govern our social lives. I've questioned the motivations of a generation raised by divorce and infidelity who still desire to commit themselves unquestionably to marriage and domestic commitments in their mid-twenties. I've questioned the very idea that love even exists in the way that everyone from filmmakers and novelists to poets and daytime television writers have imagined.

I've never considered the fact that all of those relationships I've been wondering about: particularly my twenty-something- year-old friends who've confused the idea of getting married, which is inherently tied to a lifetime of sacrifice and identity-altering commitments, with having a wedding, which is more inherently tied to having celebration after celebration over a period of six months honoring you and your partner, all culminating in a lavish, drunken party after which you have more dishware and cooking equipment than you could possibly use in an entire lifetime. Are these people genuinely convinced that 25 years after they showed up on earth for the first time they're even capable of making a decision that is likely to dictate THE REST OF THEIR LIVES? I can't even decide what to bring with me to work for lunch everyday. Is there a chance that we are so afraid of ending up alone for all eternity that we're just reaching a certain age and surrendering to whatever relationship we find ourselves in? Is it possible that if you just pretend to love someone long enough, eventually, you just will? or convince yourself you do well enough to substantiate a long-term relationship?

Not to suggest that mid-twenties matrimony is the only case in which love is merely an elaborately scripted reality tv show where the ultimate goal is to survive your partner's inadequacy and the grand prize is ending up not-single. There's a good chance all sorts of people are acting in love: text-messaging teenagers, middle-aged married people, divorcees who have rekindled their dating-youth while perusing the (web)pages of e-harmony.com. I imagine that we've come to emulate romantic rituals so effectively, likely from being inundated with their ideals since birth (movies, tv shows, books, stories, local mythology and cultural folklore), that we're able to construct entire relationships by portraying the components of them well enough, for long enough, that eventually they just fuse together to create a romantic partnership, the likes of which are indecipherable from the real thing. Or maybe that's just it? Maybe there is no difference between "acting" and "being" in love. Maybe all of the emotions, behaviors and circumstances surrounding romantic love are a complex hybrid of reality and fantasy, whereby we are simultaneously creating and experiencing our own reality.

In a world where our identities are almost inseparable from our possessions, where we portray completely self-articulated identities on the pages of social networking sites, where entire relationships are unfolding via internet-dating correspondence, it seems appropriate to question the authenticity of modern day romance. The more and more I look around, the more and more I'm aware of how hyper-mediated our social lives have become. The frequency of our communication via e-mail, text-messages, facebook and myspace leaves a frightening amount of space for our personal narratives to dictate how our relationships evolve. I've listened to so many of the high school students I work with tell me elaborate stories of conversations they've had with boyfriends and girlfriends, complete with hand gestures and voice intunation, only to have them reveal their cell phone to say, "see, just read this." I try not to let my mouth drop when I realize every exchange has happened through text messages.

If my suspicion is even partially accurate, it makes me wonder why we even bother to concern ourselves with the insignificant details of pursuing romance: Wondering where/how to meet potential mates. Defining the characteristics of the person we're looking for. Obsessing about the various ways we can avoid an eternity of solitude. Making sure we get married in our mid-twenties just in case the supply of attractive/interesting single people runs out. Doesn't all of this become irrelevant if we can simply act our way to happiness with whomever we might end up with. Who needs to search for a soulmate when we can make one out of our next dinner date?

My mom calls me cynical. My dad calls me a feminist. And while those are both fair evaluations outside of this context, I maintain that my analysis of love in this particular case has little to do with my cynicism or my socio-cultural value system. More so, it is a critical examination of the world around me and an acknowledgment that we are not simply who we choose to be. We are constantly influenced by exposure to imagery and information and we exist in a state of flux, not determination. As the great yogis say, life is change, deal with it (or something). As much as our culture has changed in the last 200 years, it is nearly inconcievable that the conditions of romantic relationships have remained static, yet somehow we are still attached to the same tired ideas and expectations of love and courtship. It's not that I don't believe in love, but that I challenge its existence as we culturally understand it. And from time to time, I can't help but look at the people in my life and wonder: are they just acting in love?