Sep 22, 2026 · 31 min · 12 segments
the monopolisation of LOVE will be the END of us
I must start this conversation by telling you about the song I will never stop singing.
There are songs that you can get away with just listening to and then there are songs that chase you down, climb into your body and build a home.
This is one of those songs.
If I were to be logical, it's the melody.
I imagine something with the time signature and of course her voice.
But if I silence the part of me that needs to understand it and return to the moment I first heard it and the hundreds of times after, It's something more intuitive.
It's the breathtaking fragility, a vulnerability fused with dangerous surrender.
She prays ultimate devotion to a person, rendering the act of existing itself conditional.
It could very well be the thesis of all the greatest romantic films ever made, expressed in under four minutes.
And yet, it is the most accurate portrait of everything I believe wrong, with our current approach to intimacy, the consecration of love into soul connections, most often romantic.
By romantic, I mean both the feeling and the culturally recognized category of relationship it falls into.
I don't know exactly how Beyoncé meant those lyrics, of course, whether it is artistic expression or personal testimony, but it's fair to say that for any person to feel themselves to live, whether practically or metaphorically, solely to commune with another person, They have to consciously or subconsciously jettison all other dimensions of intimacy.
The one we have with ourselves, the one we have with other people, with our environment and perhaps a spiritual one.
And this is truly how we, the greater society, approach intimate connections.
When we speak of relationships, we assume them to be by default romantic.
Often only clarifying to separate our other connections like friendships from them.
as if a friendship is not a relationship.
In fact, open any book, any film, any piece of media on love and it is most likely to be about this one expression of it.
We are far-reaching monopoly on our lives, our futures, our dreams, our emotions, treating other forms of love as adequate, yes, but lesser.
It is telling that if you ask most people to describe their version of the future or vision of the future, a romantic partner is almost always somewhere at the center.
The They've built up whatever their imagined future is around a person they may not have even met yet, which is often the case, by the way.
It is far less common to find someone who has placed companions who are not lovers at the center.
I think this conditioning arrives earlier or more explicitly in the lives of women.
From a young age, we are taught to link our sense of worth, our success, our validation to our ability to be chosen for and to then sustain a romantic coupling.
I must start this conversation by telling you about the song I will never stop singing.
There are songs that you can get away with just listening to and then there are songs that chase you down, climb into your body and build a home.
This is one of those songs.
If I were to be logical, it's the melody.
I imagine something with the time signature and of course her voice.
But if I silence the part of me that needs to understand it and return to the moment I first heard it and the hundreds of times after, It's something more intuitive.
It's the breathtaking fragility, a vulnerability fused with dangerous surrender.
She prays ultimate devotion to a person, rendering the act of existing itself conditional.
It could very well be the thesis of all the greatest romantic films ever made, expressed in under four minutes.
And yet, it is the most accurate portrait of everything I believe wrong, with our current approach to intimacy, the consecration of love into soul connections, most often romantic.
By romantic, I mean both the feeling and the culturally recognized category of relationship it falls into.
I don't know exactly how Beyoncé meant those lyrics, of course, whether it is artistic expression or personal testimony, but it's fair to say that for any person to feel themselves to live, whether practically or metaphorically, solely to commune with another person, They have to consciously or subconsciously jettison all other dimensions of intimacy.
The one we have with ourselves, the one we have with other people, with our environment and perhaps a spiritual one.
And this is truly how we, the greater society, approach intimate connections.
When we speak of relationships, we assume them to be by default romantic.
Often only clarifying to separate our other connections like friendships from them.
as if a friendship is not a relationship.
In fact, open any book, any film, any piece of media on love and it is most likely to be about this one expression of it.
We are far-reaching monopoly on our lives, our futures, our dreams, our emotions, treating other forms of love as adequate, yes, but lesser.
It is telling that if you ask most people to describe their version of the future or vision of the future, a romantic partner is almost always somewhere at the center.
The They've built up whatever their imagined future is around a person they may not have even met yet, which is often the case, by the way.
It is far less common to find someone who has placed companions who are not lovers at the center.
I think this conditioning arrives earlier or more explicitly in the lives of women.
From a young age, we are taught to link our sense of worth, our success, our validation to our ability to be chosen for and to then sustain a romantic coupling.
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3 of 10
Your Friends Are Not Placeholders
Friendship often suffers when romance takes priority
Nobody Can Compete With A Dream
Idealized love cannot compete with real humanity
When Friends Become Great Loves
She wants friends among her greatest loves
+7 more clips · 11 min 28 sec of audio in all
7 of 25
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