In my mind I told him he could have all my favorite songs and entangled thoughts. He could tell me about the most boring days or play with my hair if he wanted. I said I wanted his voice, his dreams, his stubbornness, his morning kisses (and midnight ones, too), his stories, his worries, his passion, his tenderness, heck, his anything at all.
But as the great philosopher Mick Jagger once said, you can’t always get what you want — and I didn’t think that an after-dawn-only affair was what I needed. Not when I actually liked him. In the game of “I love you. . .me neither,” I had found myself on the wrong side of the barricades.
I am usually first to defend the casual libertinism and debauchery that happens among the young and free these days but not this time. “This is why we cannot have nice things fellow students,” went through my mind, “It’s because everyone is after instant gratification.” My ego was bruised: How dare he not be interested in my mind and soul but go after my body? I don’t even work out! (Is it because I don’t work out?) He just doesn’t care if it’s me or Linda or Nathan. . .I thought I was quite magnificent, but it turns out I am just another brick in the wall of his booty call numbers. Then time passed, as it always does, and after my feelings faded (not to say, “as they always do”), I think I understood him and the hookup culture.
Maybe I am magnificent. Maybe I am not. Maybe I am beautiful, smart, funny, interesting and maybe not. It doesn’t matter. Feelings don’t need conscious reasons to exist or not to exist. He will meet a girl someday (a giggly ginger philosophy major, an alcoholic or a model?) and fall madly in love. He will want her everywhere, and everything will be different with her. All the awkwardness of mornings with others, all the boredom and the longing for freedom will fade away. Truth is, we are all looking for a “you changed it all” story. You saved me. You made me understand. You are my present and future and morning kisses (and midnight ones, too). You are the one I want to run away with. You started the revolution, colored my life, bewitched me, seduced me. You.
They passed me by, they couldn’t sing, but you are like a siren in the ocean. They were fine, and we had a good time, but your eyelashes are so long, they deem the past unimportant. Our hookup culture is not a cynical bitterness of a been-there-done-that kind of person. It is the maximalist’s refusal to settle. We realize falling in love is not guaranteed, and in the future some of us will end up with people who are “good enough:” nice enough, comfortable enough, just enough. But for now, we are not weary of the wait. All of this is merely biology; the magic is hiding around the corner. We have the world to meet and a heart to break. We refuse to accept anything but lust and romance and everything there is to desire with someone. Who wants just a person? Who doesn’t want danger? Excitement? An anchor? A writer? An accident? A scar or a fear or waterfall? A drug, a kiss, a blackout? Or a fever, crush, collapse, a dance turn, a fight, a smirk, a way, a style, a hundred things together and apart? And after all this, who wants just a person? Who?
We are confident and egotistical enough not to seek out someone who fits the profile armed with a list of core requirements and deal breakers. Unless we get accidentally hit in the gut by love, we are fine with being alone with our ambitions, ideas, friends, victories and failures. For now we don’t need the comfort of a return or the strength in holding hands. Not to say that we are heartless. We do want it all, but at the same time have the courage to acknowledge that having it all is a rare thing we are willing to wait for.
In the slightly altered wise words of Michael Bublé, “we’ll give so much more than we get. . .we just haven’t met them yet.” Before complaining about dating in college, we need to realize, as painful as it is, that maybe we are each just a person for someone special to us. Maybe it is a good thing, too. If we are willing to give a lot more than just physical, we deserve someone who, according to Frida Kahlo looks at us “like maybe we are magic.” Someone who likes us as a whole, someone who wants us in his or her arms and mind and reckless plans. Someone who listens and remembers. Someone worthy of our worlds.
