Something I’ve come across often in reading fanfiction is this… pervasive idea that people cannot love wholly twice, and that if they’ve chosen one person, it’s because that love is greater than the other.
It’s not expressly said that way. It’s couched in gentler, loving phrases like “he’s never felt this way before” and “it wasn’t like this with anyone else.” It’s especially prevalent when there is a canon love interest to be denied, or a mutually exclusive ship to push back against, and it feels like trying to quietly dismiss a contrived love triangle instead of recognizing that different loves can share intensity and one might still not work out.
And I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m not saying it’s problematic or amoral or something that needs to stop, that people shouldn’t be doing this. I’m not saying that one true love is a bad trope. I guess I’m just asking, what are we afraid of?
Why can’t the character have felt that way before? Why can’t they have loved someone with their whole heart before? It’s the tragedy of love isn’t it- that sometimes it doesn’t work. Not that the love was missing or less, but that it was there, that it was whole and full and real, that it mattered… but that it didn’t change anything, couldn’t work out. The circumstances were wrong, the people were wrong despite their love, it was everything and that wasn’t enough. Love doesn’t have to be less or gone to recognize that maintaining a relationship for it is unsustainable. A character can leave behind a great love and find a new great love, and while love is never quite The Same between people, it can be As Much.
And I guess I’m wondering, you know, how it is better, to love wholly only once? “It was never like this with the other person” is surely meant to be a soft sentiment declaring how much greater this love is, but, all it does is make me wonder what is so weak about it that if there was an equal love, this love wouldn’t survive it, wouldn’t be chosen.
“I have loved like this before, and I’m choosing to fight for it this time” is surely not a lost cause to explore.