Dating : In Search of Lost Love — Not by Proust

Not every human travels all around the world to explore & discover new places, not every human submerges themselves so deep in the pursuit of art or literature or science that they lose themselves. But one quest that almost every human finds themselves on — at one point or the other — in their lives, is the quest for love, the quest for companionship.

True love or its quest can be the most enthralling experience of one’s life but also the most emotionally draining. It can help you find yourself and lose yourself in another person, one moment it can make and another it can break you, meeting the right person can instill faith in the whole world and the wrong person can make you distrust the entire world, it can make your heart explode and leave a hole in your heart. All at the same time. It is probably the biggest oxymoronic experience of life.

It can also be the most harrowing experience in many of our lives. Be it an external agency like for Romeo & Juliet, a case of pride & prejudice for Elizabeth & Darcy, an unfortunate case of short life for Keats & Fanny, or the cultural influence on love & dating, love doesn’t easily come to most of us.

Each century has posed its own challenges to this quest of love, today, the digital age with its endless options and instant gratification has made finding love even more complex.

I broke up with my boyfriend two years back, actually, he broke up with me. He wanted to be with someone else. As everything had been almost always great between us, it left me feeling perplexed and confused. So the first question I asked him was what went wrong, to which he replied, “nothing; why does something have to be wrong?” As we still lived together, he witnessed me grieving the end of our relationship. One day he came to my room to check up on me, sat next to me, and tried to console me.

“I was your first serious relationship, you need to go out and explore more options, you can’t just settle with me.”

Needless to say, that left me more confused than I was before. I am happy and satisfied, why should I go look for more options?

However, that moment made me realize how pervasive this — feeling of missing out — is today, in our lives. Thanks to the endless options, the relentless swipes, the latest one-night stand, the perfect social media lives, the instant gratification accorded to us by the digital age.

Two years have passed since I broke up with my ex and I get to live in this new age dating world every day. I have been ghosted by countless men since then; men I briefly chatted with & men I shared close, intimate moments with. It makes me feel like a victim of this new-age dating. However, the truth is, I am both the victim and the perpetrator of this phenomenon. We are trapped in a vicious cycle — where we put ourselves at risk, get hurt, retreat, change our world-view, then hurt someone else to protect ourselves & perpetuate this weird chain of events.

Every Monday, I uninstall the dating apps and tell myself I am done with this shit. Every weekend, I get bored and swipe through hundreds of men in a span of mere minutes. Every time a new guy ghosts me after ‘good times’, I hate on the world and the men of today. Every time, I find a good ‘stand-up’ guy; I get scared of the commitment, the potential heartbreak and hurt, and run away. My brain sways between “The world sucks, you deserve better than this coward” & “Distance yourself now, put an end to it now before it gets too messy.”

This cycle makes me question the worth of true love almost every day and recently, I gave up on it. I felt like I don’t have the strength to go through this anymore and I wished nothing more than to put an end to this cycle.

And today, as I sit here, ranting about the toxic 21st-century dating culture, I realized the only thing that can end this cycle, for me at least, is true love. The hopeless romantic in me just realized that love alone has the power to prevent me from being a victim & a bitch.

Because as clichéd as it sounds, I feel that when I find the right person & when the right person finds me, neither of us will feel this urge to protect ourselves or play the field. We will find the strength to fight for each other, for our love. That true love will allow us to find, & rejoice stability & even stagnation, for that moment, at least. Hope.