How Does the "Invisible Hand" Direct Romantic Activities?

My friend casually made the comment that "everything has to do with Economics." That got me thinking, assuming she was right, what is the relationship between romantic love and economics? After some casual contemplation and research, I have rounded up a few humble insights on how the economy has influenced our romantic activities in ways that seem either direct or indirect:

1. The Destigmatization of Online Dating: 

Two pleasant looking college students(based on visual assumption) walked in the coffee shop I was studying in, hugged as they exchanged nice to meet you, then proceeded to the dining area downstairs. Based on the fact that they had first met and had both dressed nicely, I assumed that it was their first date after having met online, which reminded me how online dating became visibly more common--it's no longer a channel through which social pariahs and perverts finds their partners in crime, as so many stigmas around it implied.

What are the factors that contributed the increase of online dating users? My theory is that because of the recent economic decline, people have to put more time in working than they did before in order to earn the same income, the opportunity cost of working, aka the time they use to work which they would've used on doing something else like dating, increases. With incremented time cost for socializing, online dating became an efficient alternative to meet people. The decline in economy had also limited people's job options, which resulted in more people having to take jobs that involve lots of traveling and moving around; these people turn to online dating for quicker inclusion in a new environment. There are apps and websites designed to optimize efficiency, a good example being the Tinder, which in itself is an interesting phenomenon--that brings me to my second and third point:

2. Increasing Obsession with Physical Appearances: 

Simply put, Tinder is an app that operates upon one simple concept: hot or not. If two users both decided that the other one is cute based on his/her photos, they're "matched" and enabled direct communication. The operation of the app feeds the mass' growing obsession on outward appearances--a result of the media's bombardment of impossible beauty standards. The media doesn't do that because they're a bunch of masochists: they do it because they know that intensified insecurities will lead to consumption. In other words, the media and advertisers profit from satiating our escalated desires to look better which ultimately translates into the desire to get laid.

3. Hookup Culture

Tinder is just one of the many manifestations of the popular hookup culture. The hookup culture is a weird phenomenon that somehow communicates that quantity is valued more than quality, and that the more asses we score, the more successful we appear to be. I believe the economy has many things to do with it. First, urbanization as a product of economic growth had brought people together--only on the surface. It is actually obvious that despite having to be around one another on public transportations and crummy apartment buildings, people isolate themselves, perhaps in an attempt to protect their invaded privacy. People as a collective became more indifferent and less emotional. Secondly, as people put more values into their careers, serious relationships became a hindrance until they're ready to find a marriage partner. The change of mindset is especially apparent in women. Lastly, consumer culture celebrates the idea to keep options open.


I'm aware that there's lack of backing for my theories, but it was an interesting process to draw them up and to reflect on the fact that our behaviors and decision-making, no matter how mundane they seem, are reciprocal with the social environment we live in.

And we're sexually liberated. Now what?

My World Politics professor chuckled as a student in my class asked if the degree of obedience to authority would vary between people who grew up in repressive political regimes and other groups, say, "rebellious college students like us".

He then proceeded to tell the tale of him and his friends conspiring an elaborate--and as it turned out-- successful plot to overthrow the student government back in his college days--"Now that", he said, "was rebellion". Well, that is indeed one rather radical way to address the frustration against authority, but the resolution of such emotions comes in different forms, and the relationship between individuals and their respective authorities play a big part in determining how people cope with repressed emotions.

Freud nailed the term "sublimation" to describe a coping mechanism where people ease their repressed sexual desire or aggressive drives by channeling them something that's considered culturally "higher" by society, like writing or making art (instead of acting directing upon those desires). When we associate the theory with the time period when it was raised, it's not hard to imagine a conservative society which holds people back from talking about topics related to sex. However, in today's society where sex and violence can be expressed in a crude way--one example being pornography--and people are sexually liberated to a much higher degree, are we completely free from repression?

When I think about the question, I picture a painfully typical college campus where young people would get drunk every weekend and then proceed to conduct sexual intercourses with like minded associates, celebrating their hard fought victory of liberty. The representation of liberty or the extent thereof is now being defined by the amount of alcohol consumed and the reckless actions that follows. Are these college students living the dreams of their suppressed predecessors? Sociologist Herbert Marcuse holds a negative view.

Marcuse argues that this "liberation" is a false illusion that the capitalist society has given its people to make them believe that the repression has been removed and to distract them from the real problems of the society using things like crude sex. In the above mentioned case, college students would entertain the idea that they're being rebellious by getting shit faced every weekend, so that they're distracted from overthrowing the student government and potentially the real government. He calls this phenomenon "repressive desublimation".

When we fathom the profound question of why we do what we do, we can find rather mind blowing results. Is it for the sheer joy of it or for the social pressure? It is surprising how much our behaviors are governed by the society we live in, and how our psyche cope with the change of environment around us.

A Poem about That Person You Can't Stop Thinking About

I wrote a poem on this lazy Sunday inspired by a certain unfinished romantic episode that I have experienced not so long ago, with the purpose to a, express myself and b, make myself feel better about not doing anything productive. I'm going to discuss "wasting time in college" in the next blog entry. So here goes the poem that is temporarily titled "Hangover": 

Close my eyes and the train runs,

Close my eyes for no more than an hour, 

which seems too deep and long for no-more-than-an-hour. 

Deep tunnels and long rails. 

Fast train, anonymous platform standers, and nonexistent route maps, 

Stairs that are unexpectedly brief, briefly unexpected. 

Down and up, 

Strangers pointing inaudible directions, 

If eyes could move from the upper arm beyond the fingertip, 

then sound and its generator can be dismissed. 

That's how it works in train stations. 

It's a different story inside the train, 

Where leg room is as little as privacy. 

Where noises dimmed down and conversations surface.  

Where the collective is fragmented into bite-sized pieces. 

Where a trio of leopard patterned fur coated gossip,

Finds its salacious audiences,

who avoid open eye contact,

with the serendipity of free juice and pulp. 

Sit back and enjoy, 

Except I couldn't,

In a familiar anxiety station, boarded a familiar train, 

I couldn't find a seat,

For this suspended event,
On the timeline
Of us. 

Open my eyes,

You weren't on the train,

Because you took the taxi home. 

You have disappeared in my dreams
But the dreams were always about you, 

Ever since the taxi drove away and I smiled in tears;

your face behind the rear window liquified into a billow of urban memories. 

And that was the end of it. 

And the beginning of you and your obviously ubiquitous absence, 

In every way they can,

permeating my (hopefully temporary) destination-less train ride. 

Faith v.s. Love

This summer I went a movie showing during a local documentary film festival. The film was "Tales of the Waria", an 2011 documentary portraying the lives of Indonesian transgender women. What's distinctive about this group in Indonesia was none of them had gone through surgeries to remove their genitals, due to their identities as muslims and their interpretation of that identity, namely, one should return to God as God made him/her.

Interestingly, when I discussed this film with a friend who's taking an Anthropology class on sexuality and gender, she told me about another group of transgender women in Asia that she had studied for her class. This group of transgender women (I believe from Iran) is also muslim, but they address the issue of their identities in a very different perspective. For them homosexuality is a bigger sin than changing their genders. Therefore they undergo surgery to make themselves "heterosexual".

There are times when I thought to myself that I have no greater ambition in life than to love and be loved by family, friends and romantic partners--that being the goal, happiness seems easy to obtain. Little did I realize that for others in world love--something that I naturally thought was entitled to everyone--comes with a price, a bloody battle, a bit of maneuver of their faiths, and a compromise of other things like social approval, which is almost as important for survival in their respective societies.