Valdosta State’s campus is one that experiences a change in the weather with each passing week, at times even days. So many students call the weather bipolar, but the residents of this little town mirror the weather’s mood swings.
Friendships are destroyed and made after a drunken night at the bars, and true love can be found at a forum discussing the different perspectives on campus firearm policies. Love is one of the most rigidly undefined concepts in the universe; its definition can be molded to fit numerous situations, and it redefines and reconstructs marriages, relationships and day-to-day interactions.
A few weeks ago, the brothers of Kappa Alpha Psi hosted an assortment of events geared toward finding and understanding what love really is. They began the week with a forum illustrating several perspectives on love and ended the week with a speed dating game, called “Singles Mingle.” At this event, singles were given a chance to “mingle” and, in about three minutes, attempt to learn as much about the other as possible.
I attended the Singles Mingle event and found it interesting to meet and hear the ideas of my peers. The slew of questions I was asked were extremely varied from person to person. On the one hand, I was asked simple questions about my day-to-day hobbies, while on the other hand, people wished to know my life goals and dreams.
Ironically, the last thing that was spoken of was love in the sense of romantic bonding. It is a belief that I hold dear; that love is an understanding and appreciation of a person as they are in their present moment. Therefore, I found the speed dating to be an oddly refreshing perspective of love.
So often, we attempt to blast love into a tight box that excludes the simplest gestures; however, there is love in a smile, a handshake and a question about how a person spent his or her day. Love is found in so many things; it is so free of definition because it is simply those things that bring us happiness, whether it be a simple, momentary joy, or the deep, soul rush of a lover’s embrace.
Ask any person what they define love as, and it will always be defined through a glass engineered only for them. With that being said, the beauty is in language and understanding. Language, emotion and interactions allow us to demonstrate love, and it is in this that we find understanding and harmony.
Love is about acceptance of the truth of who we are, from others and from ourselves, and when you do find this love, whether it be in the pursuit of knowledge or simply a warm body to hold through the night, you will find it was never a struggle to begin with, but only a recognition of all that it is.