Forget rapturous romance, the relationally malnourished need something else

Look beyond the commercialised celebration of Valentine’s Day.

John Wyatt

John Wyatt is the author of Transforming Friendship. He also writes on ethical, philosophical and theological challenges caused by advances in medical science and technology.

A hand held out is gentle grasped by a turning person.

This article was first published in February 2024

It’s Valentine’s Day yet again – the annual commercialised binge of flowers, chocolates, tacky pink cards and heart-shaped balloons. This year US consumers alone will spend an estimated $26bn expressing their yearnings for someone or something. A special person that will make their dreams come true, a magic chemistry that will bring meaning and fulfillment, or maybe just plain old-fashioned lust. Valentine’s Day provides an annual and unavoidable restatement of the message that the royal route to personal fulfillment and relational intimacy is mind-blowing sex and romantic endorphins.

A time traveller from a previous era would look at these excesses with astonishment. How was it that sexual ecstasy and came to be seen as the route to human fulfilment, meaning and intimacy? For most of our history, sexual attraction and coupling has been regarded as a relatively minor part of life. Important for reproduction and continuation of the species, no doubt, but hardly the meaning of existence.

There is a pervasive sense of relational deficit, a longing for genuine intimacy that remains unsatisfied.

Dr Freud, obsessed with the hydraulic metaphors of the age, invents the idea of libido, a powerful but unruly fluid which provides the ultimate motive force for the personality. Sexual repression is essential to civilization but also the source of neurosis and other discontents. For decades Freudian psychology remains a minority interest for psychotherapists and creative artists but with the rise of the sexual liberation movement in the 1960s, the invention of the contraceptive pill and the commercial exploitation of sex for marketing, it has become the unquestionable orthodoxy of the age. The conviction formed that sex in all its forms is good for psychological health, that control and frustration of sexual drives leads inexorably to mental illness. That celibacy is a deeply unrealistic and potentially dangerous state, that the impulse for sexual pleasure lies behind much if not all human motivation, that our very identity is defined by our sexual drives and interests – these seem to be such obvious and scientifically authoritative ideas as to be self-evident and unchallengeable. They are part of the agreed presuppositions of twenty-first century culture, and they are all traceable to Freud. Valentine’s day is the ultimate celebration of libido in all its multifarious forms.

But for many of us, February 14th is a painful reminder of what we don’t have. Whether unattached but aching to be romantically involved, or trapped in a dysfunctional relationship, the glossy merchandise packing out the supermarket aisles only seems to twist the knife. Surveys have indicated that half of UK adults report feeling lonely, and seven percent of the population experience ‘chronic loneliness’. The popularity of transactional dating apps, and the surprising rise of simulated AI partners, reflect a desperate longing for something, a relationship that will satisfy our deepest yearnings, bring purpose and fulfillment. There is a pervasive sense of relational deficit, a longing for genuine intimacy that remains unsatisfied.

It is friendship with its genuine concern and caring for the other that must absorb our pain and meet our needs, just as we, in turn, meet the needs of others.

How can we recover and celebrate an older, deeper and more lasting form of intimacy between human beings? To the writers, sages and philosophers of the past, friendship - covenantal, committed, intimate, self-disclosing - was the highest form of human love. To Cicero, friendship was the most joyful gift of life and those who deprive life of friendship ‘seem to take the sun out of the universe’. To JC Ryle ‘Friendship halves our troubles and doubles our joys.’

Our culture’s tendency to read a sexual dimension into all close adult relationships, implies that we have forgotten that non-sexual and yet powerfully intimate, joyful and committed unions can exist between two people. Healthy covenantal friendship, in which our deepest fears, vulnerabilities and longings can be accepted, seen, known, and loved by the other, is inexpressibly beautiful and life-affirming, a form of intimacy which is open to all, unlike marriage or romance. Friendship is the love that our relationally malnourished, lonely society cries out for. Where so many in our society lack biological family or marital ties, it is friendship with its genuine concern and caring for the other that must absorb our pain and meet our needs, just as we, in turn, meet the needs of others.

Romantic love and sexual attraction have their place in our lives, but they have become twisted out of proportion and made into ultimate goals. Sex was never designed to bear the weight of every human need and desire. In a strange and poignant quirk of the calendar, this year Valentine’s Day coincides with Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a reminder of mortality and death -ashes to ashes - but also the first day of the great Lenten journey which leads to Easter sacrifice and resurrection. It’s a reminder that ultimate meaning for human beings made out of dust may be found not in libidinous excess but in love and hope that affirm and transcend our mortality.

Review

Addiction

Community

Culture

Film & TV

13 May 2025

4 min read

This City is Ours – truth and lies about the global drugs trade

The drug-dealing family drama reflects the impact of the drugs world.

Henry Corbett

Henry Corbett, a vicar in Liverpool and chaplain to Everton Football Club.

Family saga.

BBC.

I asked a thoughtful Scouser and cinephile “What do you think of This City is Ours? – the crime drama TV series set in Liverpool. I wondered if he would hate all the talk of drugs, the power games, the violence and that the series about a global trade is located in our city.

“Well, it’s true.”

As a priest in Liverpool, I have taken the funerals of drug dealers and users, including one where the family quoted me Jesus’ saying, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” I have known too many people caught up first in the heroin trade of the 1980s and then more recently with cocaine.

I agreed that the series is truthful, and on many levels. Those involved in the criminal world of illegal drugs are still people.

I remember Peter (not his real name) who I knew when he was a young lad in the youth club I helped with. He was sitting in our kitchen with a mug of tea. He had bruises all over his face because of a drugs debt he hadn’t paid. One of my daughters came in to get something out of the fridge, and Peter apologised to her for the state of his face, explained it was because of being involved in drugs, and advised her strongly against it. He then asked after her interests and what she enjoyed and was ‘made up’ – happy - when she spoke of liking art. My daughter never forgot that conversation. She learned that people in the drugs trade were still people and could be kind, and that the illegal drugs world was to be avoided. People are both made in the image of God, capable of love and concern, and also flawed and able to be drawn into a trade that affects people so badly across the world.

So, the eight episodes of the first series of This City Is Ours show that the global criminal world of illegal drugs is brutal, violent and full of jeopardy. There are chilling deaths, executions, and vengeance. All truthful to that world. There are power struggles and a vicious family succession battle too. But there are also scenes of the same family at the dinner table, of the longing for a baby with a girlfriend who is very much loved. One moment a character is a hard-hearted killer and the next moment a tender partner. That is so truthful to the different compartments that people can live in: someone can be a loving son who cares for their mother and a ruthless power-hungry toxic gangster.

The consequences of that unnecessary “necessary” action are tragic.

A further truth that I see at every funeral is the ripple effect on partners, siblings, parents, the wider family, and friends, and outward across the community. Every episode of the show features family members: some in the gang, some outside the gang, some wanting a cut of the lucrative proceeds, others desperate to get out from this dangerous, chilling world. What we do can massively affect others close to us. So often family and friends, and a community, must live with the consequences of actions taken in a criminal underworld they are often excluded from and fearful of. Even young children can be affected and dragged into a battle for power.

So, there are truths, but what about the lies? Here’s two stand outs:

“Are we safe?” “Yes, babe.”

We know they are not safe. Definitely not. There’s a target on your back, and often on the family’s back as well.

And the second:

“It was necessary”. Or “f***ing necessary”.

No, it wasn’t. He didn’t have to become engaged in a succession struggle for power, money, and control. He didn’t have to kill someone he looked up to, respected, even loved. The consequences of that unnecessary “necessary” action are tragic.

Then there is the third lie about loyalty and trust. That false sense of being in a gang that will look after you and look out for you, that will secure your future and give you a sense of being someone who counts. From early on, this series shows that people are expendable, can be shot and tossed over a cliff, and that person you looked up to may be an informant to the police. That is maybe how they have stayed out of prison.

A fourth lie the series so truthfully nails is the notion that it is easy to walk away once you have seen through the attractions of money, of Spanish villas, of designer gear, of fragile power. It very often isn’t. You may desperately want a worthwhile life that brings good not bad, peace not killings, a freedom from looking over your shoulder and from a troubled conscience. But there may be money demanded by your supplier, there may be enemies you have made along the way. I have known people successfully move away from it all but that has often only been after a spell in prison, and with a sound alternative - whether a job to keep, a daughter to look after, or a move away.

Wisdom is a much-valued quality throughout history. Five of the Bible’s 66 books are often called Wisdom books and Jesus called Christians to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” This City is Ours is beautifully shot, expertly scripted, brilliantly acted, and it truthfully lifts the lid on the world of the drug-dealing criminal underworld and on some of the lies peddled in that world. And I did explain in the funeral service that when Jesus said “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword” he was not recommending that way of life but warning against it.