Concluding thoughts and other things

This semester is definitely coming to a good end with our final discussion pieces.  While the new yorker article and Kissing Jessica Stein both playfully reflect the truth of the matter when it comes to our modern concept of dating  (and how it differs from the ancient concept of courtly love) the Kristeva piece is a much denser introspective journey through the overall themes that we have been exploring. Kissing Jessica Stein not only used comedy to breakdown the sexuality barriers that surround our concept of romantic dating but it was also successful in using a woman's perspective to portray this modern quest for love. While everyone around Jessica feels that they can give her the best information on how to find the love she desires in her life none of them are actually successful because the desire that fuels our quest for love and fulfillment ultimately comes from within therefore no one knows what we want in a partner better then ourselves. The same concept holds true in the new yorker article on the online dating services, the couples that found each other first in the real world and then tested their compatibility against the matching making programs found that while they did have an incredibly high level of computable compatibility they weren't being told anything they didn't know. Therefore is it completely necessary to listen to the rest of the world when you are undertaking a search for love? I don't believe so but I do see some promise behind meeting someone through friends after all we naturally base friendships on a different type of love and enduring compatibility which is found by straining out our social networks to find the few good deep connections. By going through friends to meet someone you are putting the odds of finding someone who you can tolerate more in your favor rather then randomly meeting them on a street. To go back to my earlier example from Kissing Jessica Stein she ends up blindly meeting Helen along with several men before her all of whom do not end up working out for her beyond brief dating, this can be chalked up to dating before personality and emotional compatibility. If you go on a blind date with someone the odds of success are somewhat akin to winning a prize on a scratch-off lottery ticket, to put it bluntly that means not in your favor. However if you are able to establish a friendship in which emotional and personality compatibility exist then the odds of being able to date that person are even greater because you are narrowing down the variables that must be taken into account for compatibility with them. Essentially this is what an online dating service does, it has a computer do the leg work for you as far as compatible likes and dislikes and possible differences in personality traits, as well as general attraction preference, and it spits out "matches" which are basically people who are least likely to disagree with you on which wine to order with dinner. As both the movie and the article comically illustrate dating is not that easy and when tied into the greater themes of love and desire it is the trial and error step to our end goal of fulfillment yet it is the most underrated step of the whole process. Dating is simply overlooked in the big picture, we talk about how people meet, how they solidified their union to one another, and how tragically it ended, yet we are bored to tears talking about the glacial pace at which they sifted through each others mountains of possible deal breakers and makers. In the New Yorker article there is a statement from one of the brains behind online dating schemes about how everybody desires their opposite and when they get what they want they love it but it also bring about an end to the love and bond that they form, such as in the case of the woman at the end of the article who enjoyed her passionate getaway with the man she was briefly dating between fighting with him horribly. That statement, similar to what Kristeva touched upon, was born of the real world gleaning of love and desire related experience that we have been studying in this course secondhand, that is to say that what we want out of other people ultimately does not exist and it never has outside of ourselves, what we desire is an image born of our own need for self completion that we project on the nearest available vessel and from this intense deception love is born. However love with too much desire will burn itself out and love with too little desire with fade away, it is a careful balance in which all human relationships are weighed upon the two element require each other yet at the same time oppose each other. These themes are what we have been building on for the entire semester by exploring every aspect from unrequited courtly love to the complex lover and beloved dynamic which can exist in many forms. This course has caused me to surprisingly have several breakthroughs which I never believed could take place being that I have the emotional sensitivity of a doughnut, but it is all for the better because I am beginning to be able to grow a deeper understanding for the human condition through an understanding of the force that drives us through life.