Samantha Calthrop

In Defence of RenPy
Written in 2021 for Buried Treasure, unpublishedRenPy is a free-to-download, easy-to-learn game engine for making visual novels, using a very simplified script that allows for a small bit of Python if the user so wishes. It's very, very easy to use and comes with a comprehensive tutorial and a handful of default graphics, allowing pretty much anyone to make any kind of visual novel they want, provided the end results don't need to be too advanced. In other words, it's an easy-to-use dating-sim maker.Give the world the ability to face two anime girls towards each other and have them interact, you will— as nature has it— end up with a lot of garbage. RenPy keeps a list of its notable games on its website, and they can be quite...

...specific.That said, RenPy has its gems. After all, only the most sheltered of gamers doesn't know Doki Doki Literature Club, the dating-sim-slash-horror-game which blew up in 2017. What's less evident is that, with its excellent use of randomised special effects and some pretty elaborate jumpscares, it was made using the world's most static game engine— after all, developer Dan Salvato is a self-stated fan of dating sims, most of which are less horrific in theme than his own. You also probably know Hatoful Boyfriend, the irreverent comedy dating sim where you play as a cheerful teenage girl attending a high school for birds. Far from the typical dating sim experience, both of these games are self-aware, genre-savvy, and ultimately pack a huge punch at the end. Both of them are well-revered for their elaborate plot twists and slightly meta-level style of storytelling.What is it that worked about those games, despite not doing much to push RenPy to its limits? Like Undertale and To The Moon, these games were elevated by let's players and became beloved for their writing and their punchy, clever content. Indie games are thriving more now than ever, and moreover, they tend to thrive in all the places mainstream games don't; where studios are pouring more and more money into graphical and gameplay innovation, their audiences are showing a growing hunger for good, strong, concise storytelling.That's the beauty of RenPy. Writing in video games isn't just normal scriptwriting with a controller attached. Games are their own form of storytelling, strange and specific as it may be, and making that ability more widely available is never a bad thing. Given the opportunity to tell interactive stories, there are artists and writers who really do shine in their originality, learning to blend the elements of choice and immersion into their writing and art— the real visual novel experience.D. Marie Licea created Us Lovely Corpses in 2018. It's a short, funny little story about witchcraft and monsters and loving someone with an illness that makes them sometimes hard to reach. It's far from the definition of high-production value, but despite its small scale and hand drawn graphics it packs an emotional punch that isn't even remotely reduced by its delivery. I first played Us Lovely Corpses shortly after it came out, and despite having first played Skyrim and Undertale in that same timeframe, it’s the strange little RenPy experience that stuck with me the most. It was natural for me, when writing this article, to reach out to the developer of the first indie VN that really buried itself in my mind.I asked Licea what was important about making video games; about what made them good. “With a countless number of games comes a countless number of ways to tell a story,” Licea told me. “Even visual novels, which we typically think as falling in a strict binary of NVL format (think the When They Cry franchise) and ADV format (think the Ace Attorney franchise), can often surprise you with seemingly small bucks to the format. If you’re like me and have worked in other mediums before, like prose or sequential art, and you start brainstorming something new, one of the questions you’ll often find yourself toying with for hours is, "What will this particular medium bring to the story?” So I suppose the most important thing to me when making a game is, “Why is it important this particular story be a game?”In the case of Us Lovely Corpses, it was important that the reader-player come to care about Marisol, because the reader-player is technically Alejandra, who, of course, cares deeply for Marisol. You can’t simply dash through the game cutting every single rose because some of the information you learn from the roses is needed to proceed, but you can’t simply listen to every single rose either because that can result in a game over. So the reader-player must think, choose, and read carefully, and in doing so will hopefully come to think about Marisol and her story carefully.”

Screenshot from Us Lovely Corpses.

Us Lovely Corpses is just one of RenPy's several linear stories that have resonated with players. Butterfly Soup currently sits near the top of Itch.io's list of RenPy games, with a small cult following that follows it still. Butterfly Soup follows a friend group of Californian Asian-American teenagers as they make their first forays into adulthood, romance, and baseballs. Butterfly Soup is a love story, not a dating sim; it's a sweet, simple story about teenagers in the 2010s learning about falling in love and dating, albeit with the very real background of homophobia and parental expectation. It might be simple, and its backgrounds might be edited photographs, but it did more to immerse me in the lonely, funny-and-sad world I grew up in online in 2012 than any VR ever could. Over The Hills And Far Away is another hard-hitting romance, albeit darker and grittier than the others; set in the colonial wars of the Northeast US, it follows a wounded soldier and his relationship with a Shawnee girl, set against the grim backdrop of the War of 1812.Although if you're looking for gameplay, it can be done in RenPy— in both traditional and nontraditional ways. I don't make a secret of my suspicion of dating sims, but an honorable mention must be made of the Sunrider series, half a dating sim in a sci-fi backdrop and half a tactical strategy RPG. You can get to know and romance several members of the battleship you captain... in between, of course, fully voiced and animated battle segments. It'd also be remiss to leave out Long Live The Queen, which -- despite appearances -- has very little in common with the average dating sim. Taking the choice-based story to its fullest extent, the main challenge of Long Live The Queen is to ensure your character, 14-year-old crown princess Elodie, survives to her coronation. The various classes, social events, and free time activities all contribute towards Elodie's handling of her perilous situation, and consequently the game has enough political intrigue and social manipulation to impress a historian. While at its core, the choices are very traditional— what to study, what outfit to wear, who to dance with— the game treats these choices more as a puzzle, forcing the player to strategise about what they do and don't need to move forward.There's an argument to be made here, of course, that RenPy did more to hold these games back than uplift them. You might wonder how much the quality of Us Lovely Corpses might have improved if Licea had been given a programmer and a team of assistant artists.Sure, they could have made a different game. But it would be incorrect to say that it was better. It's similar to the difference between a real novel and a movie. Sure, movies have spectacle and sound and several creatives all pitching in to a product. But rarely does anybody describe a movie as better than the book it was based on.A creator able to create on their own, with a minimal need for extra resources and help, isn't just empowered. Simplicity is an art form. Sure, RenPy is just a dialogue script and some branches, at its core. But that's the beauty of it. Every piece of the game is a deliberate choice on the part of the storyteller, and rarely in this day and age do we get to experience that kind of intimacy between writer and story.I asked Licea how she found RenPy, and if she was happy with how Us Lovely Corpses ended up. “RenPy is specifically made to be easy to work with for beginners, which was a real help! I always appreciate any sort of development tool that aims to allow anyone to work in it. Any problems I have looking back at Us Lovely Corpses now is 100% to do with reflecting on my art and writing-- the programming? The programming is a-okay in my book. I absolutely want to do more projects in RenPy, and I still have one visual novel in the works that I hope to finish in the near future.”“The things that make games good varies from work to work-- the reason I enjoy Her Story is completely different from the reason I enjoy Undertale or Death Mark, or Gorogoa. That being said, I am as human as anyone and I have my own bias, and my personal biases lean towards writing and storytelling. A good story isn’t necessary for a great game, true, but it does help. But in my opinion it’s not even just the writing, but the presentation that’s important-- it’s the unique way a game tells its story that makes it memorable to me.”

Is anyone okay?
Originally published by the University Express, October 2, 2019

When you get to know somebody— whether as a friend, partner, or even just a colleague— you start seeing more and more of their inner self. Not like in a weird way, just the messier side of them; some of the opinions, the day-to-day habits, the quirks and irregularities. As you become closer and more intimate, you start to learn about issues; about what keeps them awake when they're too stressed to sleep, about which faults they inherited from their parents, about what scares them most about the future. Some of us get close to many; others to very few.Here's a question for you: have you ever met someone who was doing okay?They say that social media has had an insidious effect: it's misled us into thinking the glamorous, happy, accomplished people on our timelines are in fact doing as well as they look. I can't say I relate, perhaps because I follow too many private twitters. The sentiment is true, though; we tend to think other people are as happy, successful, and normal as they appear to us. Whether that's new or not, I don't know. I'm twenty-one. Still, I don't think there are many people who don't have an answer to the general question of, "What's wrong?"People forget things. They wonder how on earth they got as far as they got they think about what they could have done differently in life. Many of us pull all-nighters, do regrettable things while drunk, and say embarrassing things to people we find attractive. Many of us feel out-of- place, alone, like we're faking it; many of us feel under pressure, trapped, fearful. We miss people, fear the future, sometimes hate ourselves.I say this because I wonder if somebody needs to hear it right now. It's very easy to feel like everybody's got it together except you. It is, therefore, very easy not to ask for help. It's very easy to feel weird and like a burden for having problems, and for not dealing with them as silently and efficiently as everybody else seems to be. We feel like we're the odd one out for struggling.The early twenties are a bad time for this. Straddling the line between adolescent and adult, aspiring and professional, it seems like everybody else is just a little more grown-up than you are. And yet even the most austere authority figures, when you get to know them, have their demons. They don't quite have it together yet. Does anyone?If you're the person out there who needed to hear this, forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for being behind, for being strange, for not being okay. If you think you're worse off than the people around you, remember: you just don't know them as well as you know yourself.

UCCSU Claim Huge Victory As Capitation Increase Reversed
Originally published by the University Express, November 28, 2019)UCC’s Students’ Union (UCCSU) have successfully reversed a €200 increase in the student capitation fee, reducing the cost to €170 for all incoming students. The increase was announced in June 2019, inciting protest from the Students’ Union, who staged a sit-in protest in the following days; following the increase being implemented, the UCCSU began negotiations with the university in an attempt to reverse the decision, eventually threatening legal action. In October, after 4 months of negotiation, the University decided to review and ultimately revoke the decision.The capitation fee was increased for all new students in 2019/20, with further increases planned for the coming years. As the SUSI grant and tuition fee grant do not cover capitation fees or levies, all students would be required to pay the extra money, and would not be permitted to use facilities or sit exams if they could not. First-year students of 2019/20 will have the fee increase reimbursed to them in the form of credit on next year’s capitation fee.While UCC defended the increase as being for student services, it was found that the majority of the money was to be dedicated to the UCC Sports Strategy, centering on building a new facility. Referendums to increase the capitation fee for this reason have been carried out twice, once in 2009 and again in 2017, and were rejected by the student body both times.Sources close to the SU informed the Express of the university’s plans, which the UCCSU confirmed when approached.“At its core, this fee represented a blatant attempt by UCC to force undergraduate students to fund a capital development project,” commented Welfare Officer Naoise Crowley, “UCC referred to the benefits this fee would have for ‘counselling and support, student health services and sports and recreational facilities’, implying an equal balancing of their priorities.”“Student services are certainly under-funded, however, by not simply opting to run a referendum for a €10 increase to the Student Capitation Fee for counselling services (a referendum likely to pass based on recent trends ) it would appear to me that the University have effectively attempted to use the services as an excuse to get a capital development project across the line.”When negotiations broke down, the UCCSU sought legal advice on the matter, and found that the fee increase had grounds to be unlawful. It goes against the principles of the Irish Free Fees Initiative and the HEA’s recommendations; all introductions and increases to capitation fees and levies should be carried out with the consent of students via referendum. A statement from the UCCSU describes the attempt as worrying, and could “set a profound precedent empowering Universities across Ireland to impose charges of any amount for any capital development without any oversight or regulation.”Prior to the fee increase being reversed, the UCCSU planned to organise a High Court judicial review on the university’s decision.Summing up the Union’s legal position, Communications Officer David Condon said, “Our legal question was always a simple one; what legal ability does a University have to unilaterally introduce, without any external Government oversight, a €200 fee that is not covered by the Irish Exchequer, SUSI Grants and not consented to by student referendum. Student Services would very much have benefited from the injection of an additional €2.4 million, however, going forward it would be our recommendation that funding for essential student services be secured within, rather than beyond, the confines of the law.”When asked to comment, a representative of UCC told the Express, “The capitation fee at UCC is used solely for student services, such as counselling and support, mental health services, sports and recreation facilities and a fund for students who are experiencing financial difficulties…UCC wishes to continue its engagement with its students to ensure these essential services are provided for the entire student body.”The representative also pointed out that UCC has one of the lowest capitation fees in the higher education system.UCCSU President Ben Dunlea, speaking on the fee reversal, said, “UCC and UCC Students’ Union have a close relationship built upon a fundamental respect for one another and it is due to this respect that this Union’s Executive engaged pro-actively with the University over the past several months. While I am thrilled to see UCC reverse their decision, I am disheartened that this was a decision that only became possible after a threat of litigation was issued by the Union’s representatives. As an institution that is heavily funded by the public, it is important that we remain accountable to the public.”“It is a condemnation of the system that the only barrier to the introduction of a potentially unlawful fee was several Student Union Officers and the students who campaigned alongside us.”

English immigrants are ruining this country
Originally published by the University Express, November 4, 2018Very few people are out canvassing for less British people to be allowed into the country, pointing to the Brits for stealing our jobs and marrying our women, or arguing that the Brits are coming over here for the express purpose to go on the dole.These people, of course, are wrong. They should be protesting. Think about it:The British are a considerable drain on the Irish population. There are 100,000 UK citizens in Ireland. In fact, of all Irish immigrants, UK citizens make up about 20%. 3.2% of our social welfare spending goes to UK citizens. About 8000 UK citizens are on Jobseeker’s benefit.Who knows what Brexit will bring? Probably more Brits, grubbing for our tax money. Next they’ll be teaching our children God Save The Queen and selling coffee bags in Lidl. These people feel so entitled to Irish resources they’ll bring their families here and consider themselves worthy of state assistance, despite never integrating properly, instead continuing watch British sports and congregating together. These people have the gall to declare themselves Irish.My father is fond of telling people that we’re economic migrants. He’s right, of course. He emigrated here from Yorkshire when I was four, working in IT, and has worked here ever since. We came here in search of a better life. The ‘economic migrant’ line makes people laugh, though because, let’s all honest with each other, nobody thinks of a white english-speaker as an economic migrant. But, as my father would point out, it’s true. That’s what we are.Oddly enough, though, he’s not the target of much racism or anti-immigrant sentiment. Most of it directed at Eastern-Europeans or Africans. My mother is from the Philippines; people would not laugh if she said the same thing.Many will argue that Eastern Europeans and Africans are attracted here by benefits, and are less likely to contribute. Well, here are some numbers I’ve trawled from the CSO and welfare.ie, to save you the bother. About 12% of the population is non-Irish nationals. 2.57% of the overall population are Polish, 1.1% are Muslim, 1.06% are Black. In December 2017, 87% of recipients of social welfare were Irish nationals, leaving a whopping 1% discrepancy between immigrant population and social welfare spending on immigrants.If you care to do the division (which is, really, not a great way to spend your afternoon off, let me tell you), you’ll that the amount of non-Irish in the welfare system appear in proportional to their numbers in the population. The amount of homeless people in Ireland present in a similar way. This all, of course, makes the Brits one of the largest draws on social welfare spending. Yet, strangely, it’s not the Brits that get any of the flak for being a drain on the system. On what basis?I’ve been here since the beginning of primary school, got a B2 in Irish and worked several jobs. I speak with an Irish accent, and my ethnicity isn’t easy for anyone to guess; I just about scrape the requirements for full, unquestioned acceptance in Irish society. I’m acutely aware that if I spoke with a slightly different accent, or looked a little more distinctive, things would be very different for me.As it is, I don’t seem to fit anyone’s image of an ‘immigrant’. People will look me in the face and tell me in a low voice that they’re not racist but they just think our country shouldn’t be so codling to foreigners when we can’t even look after our own. It won’t even occur to them that they’re talking about me and my family.That’s the paradox, though. When people are talking about “foreigners”, they are not talking about people like my father. Even if they were, they wouldn’t be talking about any significant drain on resources. Very, very few people would have a problem with me going on the dole or being admitted into hospital on account of my nationality.Anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland is not based in nationality alone. It’s about thinking brown people or people with weird accents do not, and cannot, belong here. It is the idea that those people are lesser than white or “normal sounding” people, and must be held to high standards to prove themselves acceptable and palatable. They come from lesser societies, and must be shown to have abandoned their harmful foreign ways before they are considered to be deserving of the privilege of being Irish.Of course, people like me, who have proven ourselves to have a bit of good breeding, are off the hook.Are people (or, at least, the Irish people) inherently racist?I’d like to think not. In fact, as someone who looks and sounds a little funky, people have never expressed anything but curiosity about me. People are not programmed to be suspicious of the idea of anyone foreign.Is it based on experience? Very likely not. The amounts of non-Irish nationals here are low, and relatively scattered. The majority of vocal naysayers have likely met very few actual immigrants in their life, or at the very least, know less than ten.Yet, as any browse through the comments of any newspaper article will tell you, people are suspicious of certain non-nationals here.At the moment, a 9-year-old boy born in Ireland, Eric Zhi Ying Xue, is facing deportation to a country to which he is not a citizen. 14-year-old Nonso Muojeke was granted leave to remain after 12 years of living here (after having his deportation order become the centre of a controversy).These issues are seen as ambiguous; they are being debated right now. Fewer would see any ambiguity in my application for citizenship, thanks to a white, English-speaking heritage. Fewer still for my friends and peers with two white parents; nobody can tell at first glance whether or not they’re Irish, so it would obviously be considered wrong to deny them their nationality. There is little difference between all of us.I might even go far as to say there is little difference between me and another Irish person, too. Almost as though we were all people, deserving of equal treatment and dignity in the eyes of the state. Imagine that.Irish people believe in a “greedy immigrant” that doesn’t exist. There are not many of us and we cost no more than anybody else. There’s a strong and colourful image of an Ireland being invaded by all manner of reprobates and criminals, all of them with the intent of over-powering and over-exploiting the country. Interestingly, in this image, none of them are white English-speakers. Why is it that?Perhaps the pervasive influences of American and British media, where concerns about diversity, invasion, and “mixing pot” culture leak into the Irish mind without basis. Perhaps the many xenophobic fears that drove Brexit have penetrated their way over to Ireland. Now that’s something the Brits shouldn’t be bringing over here.Hate movements have always had difficulty gaining traction in Ireland, where people are as adverse to change and extremism as they are to explicit rudeness. Much of our racism comes in the form of what I’d like to call “Irish Nana Racism”, where all Asians are suspicious until your local shop employs a very lovely girl from South Asia who helped you with your bags, God bless her.I’m not saying those attitudes aren’t harmful; trust me, even half-baked, ingenuine racism has terrible consequences on the lives on those it affects, but I would like to optimistically believe in an Ireland that is inclined to be accepting, to be curious but not judgemental of what it doesn’t recognise, and to be open to broad definitions of who is Irish.I’d like to hope that if Ireland’s stereotypes and poor representation and trashy newspapers laid off, many more Irish people would have the privilege of being considered Irish without question. After all, I have no choice but to hope for it. It could easily be my neck on the line.

Climate Change is Your Fault
Originally published by the University Express, November 13, 2018Veganism, plastic free lifestyles, raw diets, tiny houses, and waste-free living.
Plenty of these have caught on in the last ten years, in opposition to the growing urgency of pollution, waste, and industrialisation. The EU only recently passed a law to ban one-use plastics. Cowspiracy is ranked 8.3/10 on IMDB. Even the UCCSU went a week without plastic.As an environmental science student, it’s clear human consumption is driving the planet to increasingly dire straits. If we were only a little more conservative, less greedy, and less demanding, this wouldn't be happening.Global warming and overpopulation is your fault. Yeah, you reading the newspaper.Unless greenhouse gas consumption drops very dramatically, very soon, rising temperatures will start to sink island nations and change weather patterns irreparably. Land use is already overtaking land availability, the Amazon rainforest is being cut down at higher and higher rates every year.If you can name it, we're over-consuming it and it's running out. Freshwater (even in Ireland), quality soil (turns out building a city on top of land isn't good for it), most finite minerals (not even talking about fossil fuels), and trees. There are huge plastic islands kilometres in size being carried along by marine currents, killing wildlife.No wonder clean living is starting to catch on. Minimalist and clean, toxin-free living blogs are all the rage nowadays. You can't even pee on campus without ‘Go vegan if you care about the planet’ written on the wall in front of you. Is it so strange that people are struggling to do something about the problem, even if the only person they can change is them?Honest answer: A little.Trying to live as sustainably as possible is admirable, of course. Taking responsibility for over-consumption is better than ignoring it, but are we responsible for it? Every academic, scientific body agrees that this is happening, but it's not true to say that every person in the earth bears 1/7,600,000,000,000 of the blame.A popular CNN article advised readers to help stop the looming disaster of climate change by eating less meat, taking the bus and insulating your house. What would be the overall impact of every civilian in every country going sustainable?Not much, honestly. In terms of water, fossils fuels, and energy, domestic consumption is one of the lower contributors. Often, in the case of natural resources, the most exploitation happens at the industry level. Most greenhouse gases are being emitted by industries and energy production, not houses. The vast majority of water goes to agriculture.That huge plastic island that’s out on the ocean, a grim warning to people to stop littering? Most of it is from fishing equipment and marine activities, not domestic litter. Almost every type of pollution is about 70% industry, 30% domestic.Of course, choosing not to engage these industries is a statement; “I’m not happy supporting this”, and, perhaps, if half of the world's population went vegan, plastic free, and car free, the world would see an overturn.Still, though, there's a better way forward than pressuring each other to boycott. We can't stop overconsumption by consuming less any more than we can stop unemployment by all deciding to hire someone. Most of our products are as a result of overfishing, exploitation, you name it.But who let them get that far in the first place?If our markets are flooded with food that's harming the planet, why are we pointing the finger at ordinary people for buying it?Every scientific body agrees about the urgency and reality of climate change. Of the industries and countries that are making it happen, why are we developing a culture that says it's our fault*?Yes, human greed causes this tragedy to happen, but it's the greed of companies who cared more about profits than sustainability that causes the real damage. It's the greed of the governments who refuse to stop them, even when every environmental scientist is calling for change.These are the people who let climate change happen, not you buying beef steaks in Lidl instead of bananas.The entire population could demand change and about 70% of the problem could keep going undeterred. Yet a shift in international laws and business practice could do much of the work for us.That is, of course, if we let it.Maybe this is our fault, but not exactly the way we think it is. Sustainability is one huge, worldending issue made of many, many little issues that would be easier and more convenient to ignore.In fact, the problem is that that ignoring the issue is cheaper, more profitable, and has no consequences in itself. People protest the inconvenience of new environmental law in favour of economic or social concerns. Here in the west, after all, we aren't suffering the effects of climate change.The paradox is, sustainable lifestyles won't help. But we need more of them, simply because we need more people who care. More people need to know, vote for parties who care about the issue, support inconvenient laws that further it.We don't have the power to change things, only to call for change. Regrettably, the responsibility has fallen on us to do it anyway. Otherwise, nobody really cares enough to clamp down on the issue.The vegans have a point. Maybe we should be buying more quorn before the world drowns. Regardless of whether or not it's our fault, it's going to be our problem.

Dire Straights
Originally published by the University Express, 27 November, 2018

When I was asked out by my first boyfriend, an older, married friend took me aside. Most people's reactions had been either congratulatory or involved sex jokes, or both. But my friend had a sombre expression, and she was not discouraging but earnest in what she told me."Be careful," she said, "No matter what they say about equality, men will always be men."A year or two later, I recall getting the same sentiment from an acquaintance, who'd been broken up with and gotten back with again within the space of a week. The same boyfriend had a chronic habit of cancelling plans and standing her up.She laughed bitterly. "You know how lads are," she said.A male friend of mine had a girlfriend who worked, while he was in college and unemployed. She was well-off, quite generous, and loved treating him; to my knowledge, every time he came into money he'd treat her back.He admitted to me that he'd never told his parents that she paid for things; they'd have been mortified.*Here's how the world works:The ideal man is kind and sensitive, but never moreso than the woman. He knows where his duty is to step up as a man, such as looking after you, paying for your coffee, wanting more sex than you, getting angry when you talk to other men, and caring about his problems less than you care about yours. He may be cold or emotionally clumsy, but he's a man, and they're less good at these things.The ideal woman is nice and easy to talk to, definitely beautiful; it is to be expected she will be a little moody and clingy, but that's just how it is! Learn to predict when her outbursts will be; asking her about her feelings will be mutually painful. Her expectations will be confusing and sometimes overwhelming.It is expected that both of you will want to keep each other on your toes, because a little bit of jealousy and desirability is healthy. You will fight, sometimes you will scream, and sometimes you will just never agree and be left crying alone until someone says sorry and you decide to drop the issue for fear of starting the argument again.But don't worry! That's romance, and it worked great for your parents, so take it as a sign you're thriving.*Heterosexual relationships are absolutely unavoidable. A movie without a straight romantic subplot is a beautiful rarity, many of your friends are together with the opposite gender, and it's the first question you're asked by your intrusive older aunt.Much the way there are heavy expectations in gender roles, so too are there certain dynamics expected (or forbidden) from men and women who, as they often do, get together. (Non-heterosexual relationships feel this less, I imagine, because society doesn't push those people together in the first place).The first expectation that hangs over pretty much everyone is the fact you will get into a relationship, you must want to get into a relationship. This starts in secondary school and continues until you are either married or dead.It's expected, by your early twenties, that you'll have been in at least one relationship. It's expected that if you're not in one, you ought to be lonely and miserable. If you're not, something is wrong with you.Seriously, this society wasn't built for the aromantics. You don't even have to be lonely or unsatisfied. You just have to feel empty and like a failure anyway, for the heinous crime of not being attractive enough to the opposite sex.*The average lifespan of the man is increased once he gets married; the average lifespan of the woman decreases. Statistically, women's salaries and mental health both drop upon marriage. Women are usually expected to be more emotionally intelligent and domestically contribute more, i.e. do most of the relationship legwork.Men don't necessarily get off that easily. Masculinity places a high, high emphasis on how attractive you are to a woman, and if you can't find one, you sure as hell better not be seen turning to your friends or family for emotional support. Do too much for your girlfriend and you're a simp. If you fail to be protective or controlling enough, you're a pussy.Women are told to gear up to teach men how to look after themselves, look after their partners, help them through their issues and take the occasional temper outburst. Men are encouraged to make their girlfriends their entire support system. We are all human beings with largely similar brains.Is it really such a wonder that so many people end up unhappy and unsatisfied?*It's funny how, in the bombardment of information on why you should be in a relationship, there's very little info about how you should treat your partner. If you're not being slapped or cheated on, everything's perfect after all, a few fights is what proves the relationship is strong, right?A lack of communication is encouraged, and an acceptance of the underlying problems is endorsed. No relationship is perfect by virtue of the sexual orientation of its members, but in this society we encourage a toxic kind of heterosexuality.We celebrate a culture that accepts that relationships are, at best, tenuous. We tell each other that inequality, anger and resentment are just the realities of adult life.Even fictional couples rarely go past the initial stage of infatuation and courtship, and if they bother to depict any mutual support afterwards usually do so so that one or both of the partners can be killed off to drive the motivation of the rest of the characters.*I have to admit – when I got into my first relationship, I was surprised to learn that you can be friends with your boyfriend.I was surprised by the fact some couples never yell at or insult one another; that older married couples sometimes still love each other; that getting sick of each other is, in fact, not an inevitable factor....The sad thing about human kindness is that it happens all the time in many different places, but if you've never been loved by someone kind, then you have to figure it out for yourself.Don't you think that should change?*One of the the hardest lessons learned in love, I think, is that finding someone who will love you and keep you company is actually ridiculously easy. Anyone – including people who are abusive, the toxic, and the generally horrible – can love you.The sad fact is that bad people love their partners and kids, too. They're just not good at it.Anyone who's tried to talk a friend into breaking up with an awful partner will have heard: But we love each other!If you've ever had a friend whose boyfriend hits her, and you've heard her say this, you know how much it aches. It doesn't matter if you love each other! You want to scream. It's about hitting each other!Falling and staying in love is easy as hell and not even that special.Being loved will not fulfil you. It won't meet any needs for emotional support or resolve any of your trust issues.It won't get you through any hard time.It won't last forever.Only kindness will do those things.*We don't live in a culture where kindness is celebrated. We live in a culture where the most important thing you can be is attractive. We live in a culture where people can demand attractiveness, but not demand kindness.Who cares about being attractive? Everyone gets old and wrinkly someday.It's dire out there.