The Boston Globe sure has made it memorable.
"Couple found love at Occupy Boston" January 16, 2012|By Martine Powers
November 15 was a busy day at Occupy Boston. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons was speaking at the camp. Crowds had gathered in the drizzle. Protesters toiled to make their tents ready for the rain.
But Anya Karasik, 18, and Robert Stitham, 25, only had eyes for each other.
Holding hands outside the food tent before the encampment disbanded, they were the archetype of an Occupy couple - he, a red-headed Mainer with tattoos on his arms; she, a petite upstate New York girl with a heart-shaped face and a boyish haircut, wearing a knit grandmother sweater three sizes too big.
“Look at that sweater,’’ he said, grabbing her around the waist. “It’s so corny, it’s awesome!’’
He planted a kiss on the side of her neck.
The two met at Occupy. They had known each other for 11 days. They had been a couple for three.
“Everyone was like, dude, you guys should get together,’’ Stitham said.
Karasik nodded, grinning goofily. She had not been looking for anyone to date when she came to the camp. But time runs more slowly at Occupy Boston. After a few days of knowing Red - that’s what she calls him, because of his hair - she felt as if he was one of her closest friends. “He’s, like, the first real person I’ve met in a long time,’’ she said.
Karasik and Stitham are one of many couples who forged a bond at Occupy. It was not long until Occupiers were stealing kisses at the food tent, holding hands during general assemblies, cuddling on the bench near the Gandhi statue.
Yeah, NOTHING ELSE was going on down there.
But now, after the end of the encampment, which lasted a little more than two months, those who found love among the tents are struggling to keep the flame alive.
Dewey Square was not the only encampment where romance bloomed. A couple who met at Occupy Wall Street tied the knot in Zuccotti Park.
I've forgotten why they were there I'm so lovestruck.
For these young adults - a generation whose romantic interactions usually involve a labyrinth of texting and sexting and flirtation-tinged Facebook status updates - romance at Occupy Boston, they said, seemed much realer.
Not to nitpick, but isn't the correct grammar more real, not "much realer?" I guess it's who you know that gets you the job down at the Globe. Either that, or people aren't applying for a dead-end job in a dying industry.
And how about that backhanded insult, kids? Certainly stereotyping you if nothing else.
Karasik said she doubts the two would have embarked on a romance without the intimate precincts of Dewey Square....
Keep and space rest of insult.
Robert Epstein, a psychologist who is founder and director emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, studies what causes people to fall in love. The Occupy movement - large crowds of passionate people with similar beliefs living in tight quarters - was practically a psychologist’s dream.
“It’s hard to imagine anything like it, outside of a real war zone,’’ Epstein said.
Good Lord, please. Now war is love.
Falling in love, he explained, is often based on two key emotions: vulnerability and empathy. A relationship often starts when one person feels needy, and the other wants to help. Think of a wartime nurse nurturing a wounded soldier back to health.
First of all, it sounds like a dysfunctional relationship that won't last. Of course, no one ever falls in love under different circumstances(?) in this world, right?
And he's back to the war analogies. I think the good doc is sick, folks.
But at Occupy, almost everyone felt both vulnerable and empathetic: All the protesters feared a police eviction, and they all wanted to stand in solidarity with “the 99 percent.’’
Whether these romances can endure after the end of the encampment, Epstein said, remains unclear. The roller coaster of emotions that causes people to fall in love in high-stress situations allows lovers to gloss over differences.
Already trying to split 'em up like Iago, huh?
“One person wants children, the other hates children, or maybe there are incompatible political views that you didn’t see during the Occupy protest,’’ Epstein said.
Who could hate children? Those that protest? Some WERE CHILDREN (I consider young people like those in this story as children because of my age; young adults anyhow) protesting FOR CHILDREN! What is wrong with the good doctor?
Karasik and Stitham are still together, but there are challenges. He has a 2-year-old son, whom he has not yet allowed Karasik to meet, and he is looking for work in Maine or Boston.
The Globe love story turning sour?
Her parents pushed her to enroll in community college, so she is back living at home in upstate New York. They are involved long-distance, but it is hard.
Yeah, those never work.
She misses sleeping beside him in a tent, picking up trash together on Dewey Square, sitting on his lap in the camp with nothing and everything to do.
Sounds like the 21st century Woodstock.
But they often argue.
Take it from me, that is never a good sign.
When he does not answer her texts and phone calls, she feels ignored.
Okay, I went through a spasm of that stuff when all this new tech communication crap came along, but get a grip, let it go, and grow up. That's one reason among many that THIS IS IT, folks! I do not tweet or face, and rarely check e-mail.
He often worries that she is flirting with other guys from home. She sometimes wonders what her life would be like now if she had stayed in Upstate New York.
Jealousy and regrets; great combination.
“If I’d gone to school in the fall, I wouldn’t have met Red, and that would have been awful, because he’s so wonderful,’’ said Karasik. “But at the same time, my life would be more stable right now than it is.’’
Yeah, protesting against the rich and powerful and the system of enslavement they have constructed wasn't worth it.
Now send in that loan payment.
They don’t know when they will meet again.
--more--"
You know, I really wanted to give the Globe a chance on this one; however, it was once again the same old elitism and insults that left me sobbing at the sad ending.
