Between reading The Stranger and spending my days all alone with no parents at home, I began spiraling down into an existential crisis relating to love. Moreso, I kept asking myself What is love? and What does love feel like? Netflix’s new movie “The Half Of It” helped escalate my love crisis by raising questions like How many people find perfect love? and If they do, how do they make it last? And this all points to Camus’ idea that life is irrational and meaningless. How do I know that I want to spend my entire life with someone? To be there for them no matter what? At the ripe young age of 18, I knew that I still had plenty of time to meet my soulmate. But also, at this ripe adult age of 18, I still haven’t experienced anything remotely close to this so-called love. I never went on a date, never had a boyfriend, and never even had my first kiss. This all led me to wonder maybe there was something wrong with me.
So in an attempt to find love, I downloaded a dating app called Tinder. Many of you are familiar with it. If you see
someone you like, you swipe right, but if you’re not interested, you swipe left. If you match with someone, you have the chance to message them. As I began matching with people, I couldn’t help but notice a similar pattern. If I match with someone and message first, they almost usually don’t respond back to me. However, if I match with someone and wait for a bit, they will message me first. Within around three messages exchanged, these guys usually want to hang out. Because of this I start getting confused. How is one so willing to hang out with another person that they barely know? Or another scenario where a few nice messages are being exchanged, and then the guy asks to hook up and send pictures. However, when I say I’m not interested, the guys usually switch their tone on me or just stop messaging me in general. Needless to say, the hookup culture was prominent on Tinder.
It seems as if these days, relationships aren’t what it seems to be in the movies. There was no perfect guy who would come into my life and sweep me off my feet. Or so it seems. Movies like “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember” all seemed like a scam to me. So, I severely lowered my expectations to the point where I would let Tinder boys walk all over me, despite my best friend’s protests that I needed to raise my standards. After a couple weeks of letting these guys pressure me, I felt awful. I felt worthless and tired. I was convinced there was no perfect guy out there. Finding love in this loveless era was practically hopeless. And after all this time, I still had no idea what love is.
Perhaps I’m looking for love in the wrong places. Or perhaps, love doesn’t exist. Maybe humans “love” someone because they need someone to feel whole. As Plato states, “Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.” I learned a Greek mythology from “The Half of It.” The ancient Greeks used to think that humans once had four arms, four legs, and two faces on a head. Humans were happy and they felt complete with each other, so much to the point where the Gods felt threatened and cleaved the humans in half. Then humans became so miserable and lonely, searching for the other half of their soul. Plato’s quote further explains that the end to our desire of love actually constitutes finding someone that fills our other half. However, an ancient Greek philosopher Diotima of Mantinea, denies this claim by saying that finding that person is only the beginning of the pursuit of love.
All this time has passed and the mystery of love was still there for me. No answers were found in my futile attempt to find love. And it is clear that love certainly wasn’t going to be knocking at my door. One day I will find my answers, but today is not the day.