In her hit single “We Found Love,” pop icon and future star of the upcoming “Smurfs” movie Rihanna sings about how she found love in a hopeless place. It got me wondering, how does one find love in a hopeless place, such as UC San Diego?
The question first occurred to me earlier this week while talking with my colleagues at The UCSD Guardian. At the Sports section staff meeting, Kurt Johnston, my sports editor and the bane of my existence, asked us what we were doing for Valentine’s Day. My fellow writer, Henry, mentioned that he was going on a ski trip and commented in jest that he would attempt to find love at the airport. He invited me along as his wingman, but I declined because the romantic vibes in Terminal 2 felt kind of off to me the last time I was there. Another writer, Abby, said that Valentine’s Day was also her birthday, so she would be celebrating with her friends. Kurt Johnston mentioned his plans as well, but I don’t really pay attention to what he says, so he could be doing anything.
As for me, I didn’t have any Valentine’s Day plans. I originally planned on writing an article about going on a date. Of course, that idea hinged on my ability to get a date — something that hasn’t happened in an embarrassingly long period of time. So, in short, my Friday seemed like it was going to be pretty bleak. I thought about that Rihanna song again. After two years at UCSD, I still haven’t found love, and, quite frankly, I am worried I never will.
Isaiah was the last to share. Usually, I try not to talk to freshmen, but on this occasion, he said something interesting to me. He mentioned that he and his girlfriend celebrate their time together on three days in February alone. They have two anniversaries on top of Valentine’s Day, and they get each other gifts for all three. When I first heard this, I was quite surprised: wasn’t that kind of excessive? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it made all the sense in the world. If you love someone, why wouldn’t you find reasons to celebrate your love as frequently as you could?
Later that day, I asked a few friends what they thought love meant. My favorite response came from my friend Kristela, who shared a quote by the author James E. Higgins. In his book, “The Little Prince: A Reverie of Substance,” he writes, “Thinking with the heart does not produce sentimental slush; on the contrary, thinking with the heart demands commitments, avowals, and actions.”
Kristela explained to me that love is when you “lead with your heart, love is commitment, love is vows, love is actions, and most of all, it is the choices that underpin all these things. You choose to stand by someone. You choose to call those you love and share your life with them. You choose to trust them and believe in them. These are all choices — not just feelings — because love without action is liminality.”
Isaiah and Kristela’s words helped me better understand what love meant, but I remained unsatisfied. They were meaningful, certainly, but they didn’t touch on the hopelessness of it all. Love is definitely all of those things, but I still couldn’t tell how to find love in a place as mediocre as this. I had already exhausted all of my options; I went to singles mixers, posted about how lonely I am on the r/UCSD subreddit, and most recently, professed my love to every woman I saw on the Inside Loop bus. I still didn’t get love, literally and figuratively — and sexually, but that seems like a different issue.
After I got kicked off of said bus for reasons unbeknownst to me, I found myself stranded outside of 64 Degrees. I ordered an ice cream cone as I waited for the next Inside Loop to come. I thought about the last time I had a Valentine: all the way back in my senior year of high school. We had just gone out on our first date a few days prior, and I was actually unaware Valentine’s Day was coming up when I asked her out. Despite this, I was quite taken with her. Since we hadn’t been dating for long, our gifts for each other were small yet thoughtful. She got me a $20 Cold Stone gift card and a Rapunzel face mask. I loved it; it wasn’t flashy or anything, but it was simple and made me laugh, and I got ice cream. At the end of the day, maybe that’s all that matters: laughter and desserts. I didn’t love her at the time — we had only just started dating — but I remember feeling something when she gave me this gift, like someone cared enough to try to put a smile on my face. Or, maybe, that was just me reading too much into a gift card and face mask.
When I finally got home, I sat in my living room and began writing this article. I blasted “We Found Love” on repeat, much to the chagrin of my roommates. I didn’t know how to end this article — or what I had even learned over the course of my researching it — and needed some inspiration. During my second hour of listening exclusively to this song, I had an epiphany.
When I listened to it before, I had focused on one particular line: “We found love in a hopeless place.” I realized, then, that I had been looking at it all wrong and needed to zoom out. In the lyrics, Rihanna says that she and a man are together, and at one point, they stand side-by-side. As his shadow crosses hers, something comes alive. At that moment, Rihanna declares that she feels a certain way and just can’t deny it anymore. She just needs to let it go and release that love.
Throughout this week, I’ve struggled to wrap my head around what love is and how you find it in places as hopeless as UCSD, but maybe it’s that simple. It’s about that feeling you get when you’re with someone special, when you just can’t deny your love and need to let them know how much you care about them. You show you care by celebrating your love three days in a single month, by making the choice to stand by someone, and perhaps even by giving them a gift card and a Disney princess face mask. When you feel that way, that’s when you know that you’ve found love in a hopeless place.
