First thing you need to do is watch this:

Behold, one of the greatest feats of athleticism like literally ever. The passion, the heart, the perfection, and the raw emotion all while figure skating. I watched this and then couldn’t watch it again because it was so bone chillingly amazing. I get chills thinking about this performance that was twenty years in the making.

With all that being said, it seems like the only question worth asking is whether or not they are romantically involved. *FACE PALM*

Exhibit A:

And so, here are my thoughts about the chitter-chatter:

one.

We should be celebrating their INCREDIBLE achievements. I just want to see more headlines about their careers, their TWENTY YEAR history. The highlights, the lowlights, why this is a history-making moment, THESE are the things the Canadian media should be reporting to the world.

two.

They do their job SO WELL that people project the narrative they portray on ice onto their real selves. GUYS, they are THAT good at their job. If an actor/actress pair conveyed that kind of passion, tension, chemistry in a movie, they would shut down the Oscars because there would be no point – it would just get all the awards.

three.

Their relationship is SO strong and SO rare that the only times we see these kinds of relationships in mass media (TV, movies) is basically never. A girl and a boy. A woman and a man. If love each other deeply and understand each other so thoroughly, they must be into each other right? We need more stories about platonic soulmates!

People are more accepting of girl/girl or boy/boy platonic friendships because people still find it hard to believe that girls and guys can be friends. It just bothers me because there is an underlying assumption, a vestige of puritanical thinking, that men have incontrollable sexual urges to all members of the opposite sex, and that women have no agency. (Also, all people are straight.)

If anything, I want to read and learn more about their love and their relationship with each other, but I want to read it without their relationship being forced into a familiar template. I want to hear about their epic platonic love!

four.

I only bring all this up because when I get unsolicited comments from people saying that me and a friend, who happens to be of the opposite sex, with whom I have a close friendship, must be secretly romantically involved, it always surprises me. It’s truly not something that crosses my mind. I get it, maybe they can’t identify, that’s fine. But it gets so annoying when people essentially say, “no matter what you say, I’m not going to believe you, because I know your relationship better than you, and you’re into each other”. So, I can imagine how Tessa and Scott might be a little irked that thousands of people are talking about them with the attitude I just illustrated, especially after their epic win.

I’ve seen these two talk IRL about their working relationship and each other in person and what they have is SO special. You just KNOW that something special is in the room. And to see them just do something as mundane as hold a talk together, it’s mind blowing how in sync they are. To find that kind of unconditional love, the kind where you hold another person in such reverence and are able to support and push their boundaries to make them better, with any person, in any context, within your lifetime? I think that’s the greatest prize of all. The greatest story there is to be told.

Congrats to Tessa and Scott for being the most deserving gold medalists Canada could have hoped for. We love you! We are proud to call you our own.

🇨🇦

Links you may enjoy:

Here are some of my favorite articles from the NYT about love, from my favorite column Modern Love.

When Your Greatest Romance Is a Friendship

Platonic, Until Death Do Us Part

He Showed Me His Tiles, So I Showed Him Mine.

And this article that reminds us, that the popular narratives tells us that our eventual spouse/life partner will be everything, every person we will ever need, is false. Possible? Yes. Probable? No.

What Women Find in Friends That They May Not Get From Love