On November 2, I fell in love with a 60-year-old man.
Wait––before you call the cops on me, hear me out.
It’s 7 p.m.. I’m slumped over in my seat in Elfers Hall, wondering disgruntledly why Mr. Witkowski decided to schedule a Philharmonic performance on the night of Homecoming. Then the concert started.
The feeling is hard to describe. Music swept the audience like the tides, battering the walls of Elfers before ebbing. The performers’ faces, wrinkled with exertion, were swallowed by amber light. Eyes shut and hands trembling, they ceased to be individuals; they became something greater, something more beautiful. As my gaze landed on an old gentleman, his brow quivering with effort, I felt a coil of emotion in my chest—a feeling that rivaled gravity, holding me in place. It was as if heaven were being unwrapped layer by layer. This is love, I thought.
I don’t remember much from the Homecoming dance anymore (except for getting violently stepped on by upperclass students). But I do remember all of that concert in Elfers, a memory that lingers in my mind with the constancy of sunrise. I started asking myself: why was the love I felt during the concert so much more profound than any crush I’ve experienced before?
For all the talk about human civilization shifting into a more “advanced” age, we seem to have lost sight of what love is. In the days leading up to Homecoming, everyone was in a flurry about going with someone to the dance. Names & Faces was open on everyone’s phones, surrounded by exclamations: “Don’t go with them, they’re such a bop,” or “She’s literally your type, just ask her out.” I have written similar things before, when I was too swept up in the whirlwind of excitement and self-absorption to realize how diminishing these statements are to the people we claim to love.
Modern-day society has unrealistic expectations for love. “If they wanted to, they would” and “Don’t chase, attract” seems to be the anthems for Gen Z’s who want to find love but are afraid of being vulnerable and seen as desperate. The thing is, however, love doesn’t just drive up in a Porsche and pick you up––you have to go and find love yourself.
It’s unrealistic to assume that you’ll suddenly bump into the “right person for you”—someone who doesn’t have any “icks,” who ticks all your boxes. When we look at people, we unconsciously examine them to see if they fit our standards. As soon as there’s even a minor deviation from the “dream partner” we imagine in our heads, we reject them.
We are obsessed with romance, however, the idea of perfect is the enemy of the real ways in which love will appear in our lives. How many times have you gotten reels on Instagram of good-looking couples dancing in the snow and seen comments underneath saying, “I’m going to shoot myself?” The demand for this picture-perfect conception of love causes the idea of love to become a deterrent to our happiness instead of an addition to it.
Modern society is utterly consumed by the idea that love only comes from romance. But in reality, love is everywhere—you just have to let yourself see it. Love doesn’t have to be attention from the hottest person in the room or a make-out session or even dressing up in Spiderman onesies and dancing together on Tiktok.
Love is integral to our lives because it makes us feel intensely and passionately––because it’s founded on human connection. Love is making your friend laugh and seeing the light catch her face. It is sitting and waiting for the sun to rise, in the intimacy that comes from two strangers whose eyes meet, whose souls understand each other. That is rare to find in a superficial society.
We have to be ready to embrace love however and whenever it appears in our lives.
On November 2, I fell in love.
