What is love?

The next day, after my meeting with my Ancient Philosophy professor, I returned to Flack Hall to get ready for my date with Brendon. To be honest, I had no idea how exactly I was supposed to prepare for a date. I wasn't even close to popular in high school, and I definitely didn't have anyone interested in dating me. Dating was a new experience for me, but I was glad that I was experiencing it with Brendon.

It wasn't even close to four o'clock, so I pulled out my philosophy textbook and a copy of the complete works of Plato and started working on some homework. Our first unit in Ancient Philosophy was about Plato, although I thought that he was just a little bit overrated. His works were only proof that gay fanfiction is much older than we think that it is. His primary subject, Socrates, was my real hero, but his distaste for writing things down meant that the only way that I could learn more about him was through Plato.

My assignment was to read and take notes on The Republic, Apology of Socrates, and Symposium by Tuesday, so we could discuss them in class in the following weeks. I had already read The Republic, so I decided to read Symposium next. I was just cracking the book open when Patrick entered the dorm room.

Patrick didn't look like himself. His face was unnaturally pale, and he looked like he had come down with some sort of nasty illness. "Are you okay?" I asked him as he wearily sat down and opened up a chemistry textbook.

Patrick muttered something about not being okay and promising something that I couldn't understand. I figured that he wasn't in the mood to talk, so I went back to my reading. However, I couldn't focus. Thoughts of Brendon and my upcoming date with him kept flooding my mind, preventing me from paying much attention to the characters' discussions in the dialogue. As I contemplated my relationship with Brendon and worried about all of the things that could go wrong during our date, one question kept coming back to me.

Did I love Brendon?

I definitely cared about Brendon, and I liked him a lot. He was my perpetual companion, and often the only person that I wanted around. When we were together, magic happened. However, I wasn't sure if I loved him or not, if only because I wasn't sure what love felt like. I had never felt what I felt with Brendon when I was around anyone else, but I wasn't sure if that was love. If it wasn't love, then what was it? There was nothing else to compare Brendon to.

What was love anyways? I had heard so much about love and romance, but until now, I had never experienced it for myself. I knew that I couldn't trust other peoples' experiences, but I was starting to wonder if I could trust myself. I didn't know anything about love, and I definitely couldn't tell for myself if I loved Brendon or not.

I decided to continue on with my reading, despite the fact that I hadn't solved the issue of how I felt about Brendon. As it turned out, Symposium was a dialogue about the very subject that I had been agonizing over: the nature of love. It was a bit complicated, but that was the way I liked my philosophy assignments. Brendon continued to invade my mind, but I tried my best to push him out and focus on my homework.

About halfway through the dialogue, I found an interesting passage. One of the characters in the dialogue, Aristophanes, proposed that love is a result of the gods splitting humans in two, and humans then searching for their missing half. I read through his speech, and something seemed familiar about all of it.

And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. Suppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side, by side and to say to them, "What do you people want of one another?" they would be unable to explain.

Was Brendon perhaps my missing half? Could that explain my attachment to him? Admittedly, I was taking my theory from a text that was over two thousand years old, but I doubted that the nature of love had changed much in the last few thousand years. Besides, Aristophanes' speech had described perfectly how I felt about Brendon. I didn't know what I wanted of him, but I was lost in an amazement of friendship and intimacy and perhaps even love.

Did this mean that Brendon and I were meant to be together? It was a nice thought. I liked the idea of Brendon and I being together being written in the stars somehow, and that no matter what happened, we would always be together. I wasn't sure if it was true, but it was fun to daydream about.

Perhaps I was going a little bit too far. Brendon and I hadn't even gone on a date yet, and I was already thinking about whether or not he was my soulmate. It was the hopeless romantic in me that wanted to say that we were meant to be together forever, but it was just too early to tell whether I loved him or if he loved me back.

"Ryan, can you please be quiet?" Patrick said. "I'm trying to do my homework."

That was when I realized that I might have been thinking out loud. "Sorry about that, Patrick," I said.

Patrick shrugged. "It's okay," he said. "I didn't know you were going on a date with Brendon though."

"I'm going out with him tonight," I said. "He's picking me up at four, and we're going to a Thai restaurant in downtown Old Haven."

"Have fun," Patrick said.

"Thanks," I said.

"I do think that it's too early in the relationship for you to be thinking about love though," Patrick said.

"Maybe it is a little early," I said. "I do think that I might love him though."

"That's sweet," Patrick said.

"Patrick, have you ever been in love?" I asked.

"No," Patrick replied. "I've had a few crushes, but I've never met anyone that I loved."

"I'm sure you'll meet someone wonderful someday," I said.

"I hope so. I used to think that my real love was taking care of cute animals," Patrick said. "I'm not so sure anymore."

"Why do you think that?" I asked.

A heartbroken expression covered Patrick's face before it quickly disappeared. "I don't want to talk about it," he said.

"Patrick, what happened?" I asked, hoping for a better response this time.

"I don't want to talk about it, Ryan!" Patrick exclaimed as a single tear fell from his face. "Leave me alone!"

I respected Patrick's wishes and returned to my homework. As I finished reading Symposium, I wondered what exactly had made Patrick react like that. What had happened that had disrupted his love for animals? Why couldn't he talk to me about it? I wouldn't be able to find out right away, but perhaps I could ask him again later. In the meantime, I could always speculate.

I glanced back towards Patrick, who had gone back to working on his chemistry homework. He wiped away his tears with a tissue as he read from his textbook. I had never seen Patrick act like this before, so something must have happened to him during that internship. He had been so excited about it the night before - what could have happened to make him change his mind?

It had to be something quite drastic to make him change his opinion like this. However, I couldn't think of anything that could have happened in a few hours at a veterinary office that could do that. Since I couldn't solve that problem, I decided to focus on a different problem. I still had a date that night, and I still had no idea how to prepare for it.

I closed my book, put away my notes, and looked through my closet. What was I supposed to wear on a date anyways? I wasn't sure what Brendon would like, so I picked out a collared shirt, a pair of black pants, and my warmest jacket, because it was freezing outside, which was typical for Connecticut in January. I took a quick look at myself in the mirror and noticed that something was missing. After some thought, I determined that I needed some eyeliner.

I rummaged through my makeup and found my eyeliner pen. As I applied the makeup, I looked at the clock. It was 3:50. Brendon was supposed to pick me up in only ten minutes. My heart began to race while I finished applying the eyeliner. I decided to go for a relatively simple design, if only because I didn't have much time left. What if Brendon showed up early? I wanted to be ready for him whenever he showed up, and that couldn't happen if I was still putting on my makeup.

I threw on the first pair of shoes that I could find and waited by the door. Patrick was still working on his homework, and I watched the clock as the minutes went by and my anxiety only grew. What if something went wrong? What if I lost my chance at being with the man that I loved? I seemed like the sort of person who would screw up something like this, and as I waited, I became more and more certain that I would lose Brendon.

To ease my worries, I took out my phone and popped in a pair of earbuds so I could listen to The Beatles. As the familiar melody of "Across The Universe" played, I relaxed slightly. I was still a little nervous, but I could take a few deep breaths without thinking of the many ways in which this date could go wrong.

Four o'clock came and went, and a new question arose in my mind. What if Brendon didn't show up at all? Maybe Brendon didn't love me like he did yesterday, and he was about to break my heart. I watched as the clock kept on ticking, and the chance that Brendon might not show up became higher and higher with every minute that went by.

After six minutes had passed, I finally heard a knock on my door. I opened the door, and Brendon was standing there with a bouquet of roses. He had a huge smile on his face, and he was wearing the same sparkly gold suit that he wore when we met for the first time. "Hi Ryan," he said as he gave me the roses. "You look cute today."

"Thanks, so do you," I said. I put the roses in a vase with the other bouquet that he had given me and then returned to the doorway. "Are you ready to go?" I asked him.

"I'm ready to go!" Brendon sang. I laughed, and he said, "I might use that in a song someday. Anyways, let's go."

That was the start of a night that would change my life.