By Taylor Johnson
Recently a new trend has arisen on the internet: Bring Back Men Who Yearn. When I saw this I was a bit confused. I did not understand the concept of yearning, so I took it upon myself to do some research.
First I looked up the definition of yearn. Google defines it as having “an intense feeling of longing for something, typically something that one has lost or been separated from.”
I was still a bit confused so I asked my friends at my lunch table if they had seen the recent trend on TikTok. Senior Alaysia Georges perked up. “My for you page on TikTok has been filled with bring back men who yearn edits,” she said. For readers who are not familiar with TikTok, a for you page is the part of TikTok where you scroll through videos and it filters the videos by what you like.
I was curious to see one of these edits so she showed me. It was from a popular romance movie The Notebook. In The Notebook the main character Noah vows to fix up a house for the woman he was falling in love with, Allie. Years later after they parted ways she saw in the newspaper that he had built the house of her dreams for her. “That is the definition of yearning for a woman,” said Alaysia. “Men in this generation would never do such a thing,” said senior Lane Caldwell.
This then caused me to have a brilliant idea. I wanted to see if men used to yearn at Lovett a long time ago, so I went to chat with Mrs. Gilmore. “These days men’s yearning at Lovett is sending a snap,” said Mrs. Gilmore. Ouch.
Mrs. Gilmore met her husband at Lovett back in the early 2000’s. They were high school sweethearts which is very rare these days. I asked Mrs. Gilmore if her husband yearns for her. She nodded quite hard.
“Guys at school actually had to talk to girls in the hallway to ask them on dates since our flip phones barely even worked,” said Mrs. Gilmore. I don’t think I have ever heard in my 7 years at Lovett that someone asked a girl out on a date in person. It always happens with a little text on snap and rarely through text messaging app.
So how does Mrs. Gilmore’s husband shows that he yearns for her? “By sending me a text every day in the middle of the day saying that he misses me even though I saw him a few hours ago,” she said, laughing.
“This is a prime example of yearning,” said senior Louise Beery who was working as a student aide in her office. Yearning was starting to make a lot more sense to me. I wondered what Mrs. Gilmore would do it if she did not receive a mid-day love text from her husband. “I would assume he had died,” she said laughing. She explained to me that she is so used to his texts that she would be sad without them. “I like that my husband yearns for me,” she said.
She thinks that it is very important for current-day Lovett students to learn how to yearn more for their baes. “I think nowadays that might scare some people away,” said Louise. I agree with this because I think we are all so used to yearning over social media that if it occurred in person an outburst would occur.
I also learned that there are other ways to yearn than just texts and asking someone out on dates. “Another example of yearning is when guys pay attention to a girls favorite food or flower and get them for her,” said senior Henry Walter. A certain person in my life with the initials F.G. has bought me flowers during hard times and he’s written me letters. I’m pretty sure he’s getting me a pickle bouquet for Valentine’s Day. The guy knows me well. And it’s much appreciated.
Senior Chelsea Daniel in our free period shared her own modern example. “When a man triple or quadruple snaps you,” she said. “This is why we need to bring back the old way of yearning or yearning in movies like The Notebook,” senior Ella Williams chimed in.
From all my research learning about the new trend “bring back men who yearn” I concluded that men no longer yearn and it’s a major problem. This is why they are baeless.
