The end of ‘Sálvame’ has to serve to make us realize one thing: the world of the heart never ends, it only transforms. Since the “mundane chronicles” appeared in the ‘Black and White’ at the end of the 19th century until today, we have never stopped being interested, not even for a single moment, in the life of celebrities. We have changed the sets and shouting for Instagram and Stories, but the result remains the same: we live fascinated by reconciliations like that of Dulceida and Alba Paul. We want to believe their return with all our strength. And yet, a question dwells in the back of our head: Is it real?
Target: love
Dulceida and Alba’s relationship began under the protection of a camera and has always lived around it. Videos at events, photos on the beach, flashes of an aspirational idyllic lifestyle in which they themselves were dedicated to sell, whoever paid, the same, their star and differential product: themselves. They were the star couple of Instagram, a new way of understanding the world, a spark of hope in the hurried and depressive millennial life.
In the same way that we want to believe that Romeo and Juliet kill each other for love on stage and they are not two actors who then go home, the curtain of Dulceida and Alba‘s life only falls when the camera goes down and the lens goes off. As if the real life always happens facing others, looking for the ideal shot that says, at the same time, “This can happen to you” and “Our life is perfect”. A relationship so believable and so beautiful that its ending left a whole generation with a knot in the stomach.
Any normal couple, when breaking up, suffers for a while but does everything possible not to see the other person and get over it. Dulceida and Alba couldn’t give themselves that privilege: they had contracts, deadlines, dates, photos. Always showing themselves perfect and ideal, even when their hearts are broken and their souls are somewhere else. Or maybe, accustomed to the daily soap opera and to always show their lives live, neither the relationship was such a relationship nor the breakup such a breakup.
Reconciliations
In Madrid you never see your ex, unless you’re an influencer: Dulceida and Alba were seen in every event, every party and every preview without stopping looking ideal smile, perfect photo and luxury stories. And from the very moment they broke up, there was talk of a return that, as real as they feel, it can’t have been. When a normal person breaks up with your partner, you don’t have fans and journalists asking about her and theorizing, analyzing every sentence for a veiled reference to her. In the end you think you have to go back to that person, if only to silence all the voices and be able to live in peace.
And, why deny it, to get a handful of new contracts and stratospheric likes on Instagram. The now famous photo of the two of them together accumulated 609,000 likes: photos in which they do not appear together have six times less engagement, however paradisiacal they may be. The love of the two sells, as hypocritical as it may sound. And they know it perfectly well. It’s not that they have signed a contract or anything like that, but the announcement of their relationship is anything but spontaneous: it has a team behind it that prevents it. Love? Sure, at six o’clock in the evening, remember to upload a Story announcing it.
Accustomed to tell absolutely everything about their lives, practically scheduling their day-to-day life openly to their followers, Alba and Dulceida know they can’t afford not to smile in front of their dream breakfast, not to kiss each other when the sun goes down, not to hold hands in the streets of Madrid while trying to create a Reel that seems natural within its absolute artificiality. And yet.
Love in the age of Instagram
Who hasn’t ever dreamed of being an influencer? It doesn’t matter if it’s through Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or even Facebook: we all share our life through social networks, we all make a play out of it, representing reality in our own way to followers. It can be sarcastic, endearing or idyllic, but almost all of us end up gratuitously falling into the same trap that Dulceida and Alba have learned to capitalize on. They know perfectly well that their relationship makes money, yes, but… Who’s to say it’s not true?
Jorge Javier Vázquez said that he met them both on a plane and that they were genuinely happy. On Twitter there are people commenting that they have seen them walking around Madrid holding hands. When the camera falls and the lens closes, that’s what counts. And if what’s left are walks, coffees, smiles and trips, they both come out on top. There will always be doubts, as there are about so many other people in the celebrity world: we have seen too many pacts and falsehoods to believe in love between celebrities.
However, there is something in Alba and Dulceida that transcends the posts eating a croissant or sleeping in a hammock next to an infinity pool: there is rapport, laughter and affection. They may want to sell us the perfect life, yes, but they may also have it and all the doubts come from our most hidden envy. I guess someday, maybe, we’ll know everything. Hopefully, it won’t be in an Instagram Story and their relationship will survive the app of the noses.
