For this Saturday, I went to the How Do We Love event where we discussed just that: love. We started by reading the handout in pairs and discussing the question between ourselves, before moving to a group discussion.

I found that in the group discussion, it took a while for people to open up and be comfortable sharing. Because of this, I think it would have been more effective to spend shorter time on the individual discussion and more time on group discussion so we are able to feel more comfortable sharing in a large group setting. Because of time, it seemed as though that just when when the topic shifted to one people had something to say about, we were almost out of time.

The part of the conversation that struck out most to me then was the end of the discussion. At the end, we had to relate what we discussed to ourselves. At this point, the conversation shifted to love in the Cornell community. Many of us agreed that the atmosphere at Cornell was not a love-heavy environment for multiple reasons. First, was he focus on academics and extra-curricular activities seemed to take precedence or Cornell students (may not be the case of individual students, but for students as a whole). Thus, because relationships (platonic or romantic) obviously take time and effort, there is not any sort of focus on relationships. The second reason for the lack of love on campus is because of the hook-up culture in college. Because of the hook-up culture, while there are students who are trying to find a stable relationship, it is difficult to tell apart who wants a serious relationship versus those who do not.

This conversation definitely had me thinking about my own relations with my friend on campus and my family and whether I put in enough effort to show them I care. I am glad I went to the discussion because it was a very reflective session.