Disney & Taylor Swift made me Delusional!

Let me just start by saying that I am a very social person but when it comes to letting somebody into my world, I can be exclusive and shy. If you’re reading this you probably know me from DePaul and we took a Communications Studies class together. So, you will be familiar with the attachment theories about secure and insecure attachment styles. If you don’t know what I am talking about here’s a quick lesson. Either you are secure- you have high self-esteem, are trusting, have lasting relationships, and you’re comfortable with sharing your feelings or you are insecure. Insecure people are broken down into the three groups ambivalent/anxious, avoidant/fearful and dismissive/disorganized. Ambivalent/anxious types are reluctant to become close to people, worry their partner doesn’t love them, and become very distraught when a relationship ends. Avoidant attachment styles tend to have difficulty with intimacy and close relationships, do not invest much emotion in relationships and experience little distress when a relationship ends. They often avoid intimacy all together. Dismissive/disorganized attachment styles are so unlikely to be in a relationship that there is no data about what they are even like in a relationship. Hello, my name is Humera and I am avoidant/fearful. And I would also like to say being able to know that is probably the worst thing about being a communication major because knowing all of this doesn’t help your relationship, you still fall into the pattern, the only thing communication majors do differently is over-analyze everything ten times more! Now with the close-relationships lesson over we can continue on about why Taylor Swift and a couple of other factors have turned me into a delusional basket case.

You should also know that I love the book/movie “He’s just not that into you.” I seriously walked around believing that if you met a guy and he was into you he would call, want to talk you or want to hang out with you. I found out the other day that isn’t true! My friend who is a guy basically told me that guy’s are lazy and are not going to make the effort unless you do. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?! Girls make the effort- we talked to the guy, we gave him our number, and we allow the guy access to stalk us on facebook, what more need we do! I seriously had the hardest time wrapping my brain around his statement. I still completely don’t understand it and will probably never find love because of it (I know I sound avoidant/fearful).

After thinking about it, I finally got angry and tried to pin-point where I went wrong. They say your attachment style is based on your relationships as a child. My childhood was wonderful, no complaints, I was raised on American values and Disney. Hmmmm Disney…this is all Disney’s fault! I continued to think, that means Disney is full of crap (and racist, it seriously took them that long to have a Black Princess and she was a frog most of the time! WTF). Disney movies always end with a happy ending and they start making you delusional. I seriously had a child tell me, who she was going to marry, how many children she was going to have and what she was naming them! I don’t even know what I want for dinner! It’s Disney! I watched Disney and look where it got me, I am an avoidant/fearful basket case that thought I would just know when I met Mr. Right because it would be a magical moment where birds sing and deer dance and owls suddenly come out during the day and fly around you. Then I thought to myself it can’t be all Disney’s fault, I mean seriously I haven’t watched a Disney Princess’s movie in a while, but I do listen to Taylor Swift everyday…

Taylor Swift’s music is all about finding love, your knight in shining armor rescuing you, being in high school or about boys named Drew, Stephen or Corey. You can’t help listen to it and get super happy or want to barf. I get super happy and think to myself, “I hope one of her songs is describing my love story.” If what my guy friend says is true then Taylor Swift is full of crap too.

I am not denying love, I love lots of people and I believe it’s possible to feel that strong about someone. What I am saying is that because of Disney, Taylor Swift and romantic comedies, the idea of how to find that person has become completely distorted.