I recently explored the depths of Powell Library’s hidden dungeon, also known as the recent fiction collections on the first floor. It was a Friday after class, and I just so happened to pass by, searching the aisles for physical copies of my required readings. The smell of old books permeated the air, stale but nostalgic. Dust lined the top of every wooden shelf occupied by titles I’ve never once heard — empty quietness filled by only the steps beneath my shoes — and it was captivating: like taking in a part of history but a history unknown, a history untouched.
I left, two books in hand, and yet, I knew deep down, huddled in the space between PS-3500 and PS-3700, that I was searching for something else, for something thrilling.
For something like a meet-cute.
Indeed, the idea of a meet-cute appeals to all, but for someone such as I who has never once experienced romance, it becomes an incurable addiction. Sure, I attend the KASA meetings in celebration of my shared culture, but is it wrong as well to hope I find “the one” among the multitude of its members? And even if I do attend all my classes in the belief I’ll somehow be seated near a good-looking stranger, shouldn’t the act of attending be enough?
Meet-cutes by definition are few and far between, selfishly restricted to the realm of fiction wherein two characters share an “amusing or charming first encounter,” ultimately leading to “a romantic relationship between them.” They’re everywhere — TV, films, novels, you name it — a seemingly inescapable trope as intoxicating as it is infuriating. Its appeal lies primarily in the fantastical quality of it all: how, as if designed by fate, the two lovers find each other in the most certain of places at the most specific of times; an entire future blossoms from a single instance. It’s a pretty idea. Easy. A love so ideal, so perfect, it couldn’t possibly exist in any other world besides the imagination. Yet, I can’t help but continue to wish it would happen for me, too.
I don’t believe it’s a bad thing to seek potential romance. At the end of the day, is it not all about connection? For example, think of the last time you had met someone in passing, only to say to yourself, “Wow, they’re cool,” or “I would’ve loved to get to know them better.” These friend crushes are not dissimilar. Rather, they also stem from a very real desire for human connection, where to be chosen is to be seen, and to be seen, to be loved. Meet-cutes, however improbable, are but a byproduct of that.
I still go about daily life as usual — I still study, go to work and see my friends. Searching for romance doesn’t prevent me from living, nor does it diminish the other important aspects of my life. If anything, it makes life just a little more fun.
That’s the beauty of it all, such that the search becomes its own kind of romance. There’s something tender in the waiting, in the quiet hope that the next person who brushes past you in a hallway or smiles across a crowded room could change everything. It’s not desperation, but anticipation, the soft hum of possibility that threads through the ordinary.
Perhaps I’ll never experience the perfect meet-cute. But maybe I’ll find something gentler, slower, a different form of connection built not from coincidence, but from choice. After all, love, real love, isn’t about scripted moments or divine timing. It’s about two people deciding, again and again, to see each other fully and to stay.
So I’ll keep wandering through Powell’s aisles, dust motes dancing in the light, books tucked under my arm and a quiet hope in my chest. Maybe one day, I’ll stumble upon someone doing the same. Or maybe I won’t. Either way, I’ll keep searching — for stories, for meaning and for connection — because even if the meet-cute never comes, the yearning for it makes life feel a little more cinematic and a little more alive.
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Featured Image Photographed by Asher Nee/BruinLife
