How To Fall In Love Once And For All... Kinda

For a while now, I’ve suspected that we were never meant to know so many people. Or even date a notable number of them. I told this to my friend, who’d just made a case for removing social media and dating apps as a means of meeting new people.

“A simple DM will technically be enough to enter someone’s life unannounced,” she said, livid. She told me that even though she understands that our generation at some point in history realised the traditional ethos of marrying people in the same vicinity wasn’t enough for their incredibly unsatisfied hearts, the technologically advanced systems that analyse human behaviour and predict matches or the easy digital access to each other’s lives, aren’t the solution.

“It’s fast,” I said.

“Yeah, but none of them account for human moods, taste and real intentions,” she said. “At least with meeting people at a bar, you get to swift quickly through the icks and jump over the facade of carefully edited bios and curated profile pictures, and decide if you want to stay.”

“And you get to eat,” I said, jokingly. She did not love this.

But she was right. We’re all just exposed to too much. Too many experiences, traumas, too many different sizes of vaginas and dicks. I am personally tired of how many lips I’ve kissed. And it’s not for the lack of trying to make whatever current situation I’m in the final one, but there are just too many options, and we never fully take the leap.

A few weeks ago, though, I watched the Apple TV movie “All of You”, which follows two best friends, a boy and a girl, in a world where science is so advanced that, with a few blood samples, it can direct you to your soulmate. Of course, because it’s a movie, when the girl decides to go through with the experiment, the boy secretly hopes that the results will point to him, despite not having taken the test himself.

Unfortunately for the boy, the girl finds a great guy who has taken the test—the first issue with the whole thing—and though not as impervious and comic as the boy-best friend is, the couple believe in the science that promises 100% effectiveness, and they make it work. They date, they tolerate, they marry, they have a kid, and they’re happy, until it’s also revealed that the girl does love the boy too, and suddenly the whole sciency thing is questioned. But you will have to watch the movie to see what happens next.

My take is that a technology of sampling your blood and a few weeks later announcing to you that one other person in the program is so compatible with you, is frankly insane, but it is also what led me to believe that we could possibly find a solution to our dating problems.

What the movie presents is a world where science removes the digital paralysis and the in-person torments of meeting new people and simply tells you who the universe, or God, or I guess, a laboratory tube has fated for you. And more so, it markets it so widely as a fail-proof advancement in human lives, where all their worries of finding partners would be alleviated. Hence, one can simply go on with their lives without the stress of finding the one to do all those things with. The one you would never divorce. Tell you what, if it existed, divorce lawyers would be out of jobs.

It is, of course, a very fictitious idea. One I’m sure some scientists are chasing. But I looked it in the lens that all it took for the characters in the movie to go with it was that they’d been told it’s reliable, like we know cars work, buildings stand, and grass will grow. It’s all blind assurance. And humans end up relying on them like knowing that if a phone screen cracks, you can just replace it because the phone is still functional. And with that mindset, turning dating into a once-in-a-lifetime subscription move where the next person you meet is advertised as your perfect person, and no one else is better suited for you, well, sounds to me like the greatest trick one can do for themselves.

The wile is to remove any distraction when you launch yourself into a new thing. Not entertaining anyone else. Not fantasizing a potential crush. It seems obvious when laid out here but not so practiced. It's not easy to do. However, if you and the person you just met fully believe that statement, then the only thing that will happen is that you’ll both give it your all, check each other's strengths and weaknesses, work together to fix your problems, and empower each other, because you will believe that there’s no one else for you and that this is it.

There’s more to it, of course. People go into relationships all the time with that kind of belief. It’s not fail-proof, don’t get me wrong. But I believe that you don’t need systems and algorithms dictating your taste and needs. You just need to meet someone and convince yourselves that what you’re doing, what you’re building, is the only thing you’ve got.

If it wounds up not working out, no one is of blame, because there wouldn’t have been any cheating, misleading or heartbreak. It would just end. You would go on the next one with hopes and effort, and none of your energy diminished since it only dies down from trust issues and hurt, which, as established, wouldn’t exist, for both partners would have been true to the cause.

I believe that this is what humanity needs. What dating needs. Entering a thing with all of you, because there’s no other way to do it.

Eventually, of course, it all cracks down. Nothing can truly predict people’s intentions and change. But it’s not a moot point to try. Because as I know Tinder has shaped happy couples, and an alternative world where your blood could determine your husband, and people who meet in bars end up on the altar; the thing that holds it all together isn’t where they met or how they met or who they are before and in the process, it’s the complete belief that the person holding your hands is the one. Whatever else that happens, happy endings or break-ups, is just a matter of how strong that belief is, and if it was ever there to begin with.

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POSTSCRIPT

LISTEN: "Son of Spergy" by Daniel Caesar - "Cosmic Opera Act I" by Labrinth - "Uwankunze Nkumva" by Sema Sole & Mwiza - "It could be worse" by Samm Henshaw - "MURIBO" by Gihanga • WATCH: ARSENAL WINNING THE FUCKING PREMIER LEAGUE, (2025) - "Hamnet", (2025) - "Wonder Man", Season 1 (2026) - "The End of the Tour", (2015) - "Rental Family", (2025) - "Sentimental Value", (2025) - "The Wrecking Crew", (2026) - "Mo Gilligan's In the Moment", Stand up (2026) • PODCAST: "Strangers on a Bench" by Tom Rosenthal • READ: "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" by Raymond Carver (2016) - "This is How It Happens" by Molly Aitken (2026)