…that cheeky little bastard!
There are moments when I forget myself and my significance in the world. I feel as though I’m fighting a numbers game… and losing badly. There are about 3 other billion (think about that number for a second: billion) men out there with whom to contend. What have I got that they don’t have? And more importantly, how is that One True Love (OTL, hereafter) going to find me among the throngs?
In advertising circles, this problem is known as “rising above the clutter.” Simply, it’s devising a method to become discovered by consumers when every other product on the market looks and functions the same as yours.
But to be fair to myself, what’s the difference between all the women in the world? Sure, there are all types physically. But those are superficial differences. How do two people come to the realization that they are mutually the perfect match for each other, amid all the myriad possible combinations?
That same advertising culture attempts to answer that question this time of the year. Their solution? What we’re really missing is the sweeping-off-the-feet kind of romance. The OTL.
That thinking seems to work at odds with the traditional wisdom of lasting love, which maintains OTL is both volitional and sacrificial (choice and hard work). That recipe is a firm one, and yet the consumer in me finds it somewhat anticlimactic. Where’s the passion and spontaneity within such deliberate formality? I don’t want to choose to be in love. I want it to just happen!
An aside:
I was reminded of how uniqueness can thrive even inside a multitude of similarity. I love my cat. When I look at his face, I just love him, plain and simple. There are millions of cats in the world; why would I love this one? For starters, I choose to. But also, I’ve come to appreciate his little oddities and mannerisms that are completely his own. I can’t even define where this emotion comes from inside me, epistemologically. It’s there nonetheless.
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