love and dating

I told someone recently I was looking for love who responded “in this economy?" I feel pathetic admitting this, someone else texted me, but I want a boyfriend. When I scroll through TikTok, skinny women wearing sweatbands dole out romantic advice: if he wanted to he would, no sex until the third date, how to get him to commit, red flags, green... See more

What emerges is a system where intimacy is reframed as economics, and selfhood becomes something to trade. And while it presents itself as rational, even strategic, it ultimately functions as another form of performance: engineered for attention, sustained by anxiety, and constantly escalating.

It’s hard not to see this as a kind of cultural... See more

Has love fallen into the realm of planned obsolescence? Where beautifully packaged, terribly fragile emotions are evidence of having reached the summit of our aspirations, only to be left yearning, craving that next big hit? Desire is the newest addiction. The feeling of “want” being much more thrilling than the comfort of being satisfied. Craving... See more

We’ve traded the theatre of passion for the theatre of avoidance, as though emotional minimalism were the only responsible way to survive modern life. A world that considers yearning immature and indifference sophisticated leaves us fluent in strategy yet illiterate in wonder.

To long for someone or something is to grant it weight beyond its immediate utility, to recognise meaning that cannot be monetised or replaced. Longing insists that not everything worth cherishing can be upgraded, delivered, or optimised.

Desire became a kind of curriculum, a map for who I wanted to become.