Republished Old Post
I was chatting with a fellow writer yesterday about all the apocalyptic fiction out there at the moment and how many of them included romance. Her general idea was that there might be plenty of sex at the end of the world — it is, after all, a great stress reliever — but that people would turn away from love and romance because there would be so much despair and negativity.
Though you’d be hard-pressed to find some candles and a sappy violinist during the apocalypse, I don’t believe romance would be dead. It would be different, more primal. Giving someone you love your ration of food, bringing them a flower or anything pretty you might find while scavenging, going out of your way to make something a bit more pleasant than the despair all around you.
One fresh blueberry can stand in for a diamond.
People are naturally hard-wired to love one another, I think. While sex is an animal need, a craving and, as mentioned above, a great way to find some pleasure in a non-pleasurable world, falling in love with someone is a very human need, I think.
We want connections. We want someone on our side. And in a world where everything seems bleak or actively working against us, when things look darkest, I think we’re much more likely to fall in love. It might be our only comfort left.