A Certain Vibe

I’ve had a bad history of falling in love far too easily, yet being haplessly daunted by rejection; more precisely, it was the anticipation of rejection and not rejection itself that ultimately sabotaged me in my quest to find love. Throughout my teenage and college years, despite overidealizing the notion of romance and being overly susceptible to the capriciousness of my romantic impulses that wrought chaos in my ghostly and forlorn heart, I never mustered the courage to even make it to the point where I could even be rejected in the first place. I’ll spare you, the reader, from the cringe-inducing details of my many failed attempts that were riddled throughout this epoch of my life. 

In 2019, having already decoupled myself from the psychological constraints of school and church that had once mired me in a seemingly perpetual spiral of loneliness and failure, I began to formulate a sense of independence and confidence to take on the world. Having already spent a year working at Paris Baguette—where I had just been promoted to a management position—not only did I attain financial freedom, but it also led me to forming many meaningful and lasting friendships that boosted my social confidence. And with that newfound social confidence, I felt as if I was ready to delve back into this game of romance.  

Since February that same year, I’ve had a playlist on Spotify entitled “A Certain Vibe”; what seemed to be a straightforward collection of rap and pop songs ended up becoming a profound manifestation of my volatile, fledgling emotions and ambitions in this quest for redemption. Recognizing the need for change, I intuitively ascribed nearly all the dissatisfaction that existed in my inconsequential life then to my past timorousness, eccentricism, and general inability to fit into nearly any social context. The music embodied an almost vengeful antithesis to my cowardly, socially awkward and emotionally dysfunctional past self. I wanted so desperately to prove that I was past that phase of my life, that I was fundamentally a completely different person

The odd thing, however, is that even when I created the playlist, I wasn’t quite capable of explicitly defining what this vibe even was; it was a collection of songs that didn’t merely evoke distinct, clear-cut emotions, as did most other music I listened to, but it was rather an opportunity to vicariously live a life I never lived. It was a entrancing glimpse into a surreal, unfamiliar world—visions of carefree abandon, of night drives out to the club, of the intoxicating, alluring scent of perfume and cologne, of the strangely sensual lingering odor of cigarettes and alcohol, of walks along the beach amidst a sunset glimmering along the waters, of the blissful sensations of wafting along warm, intimate air and gentle, caressing summer breezes, of the mesmerizing gaze and the captivating touch of a coveted lover, gripped by infatuation, hypnotized by this irrefutable feeling, causing the world around to collapse in on itself. Passion, desire, lust, freedom—all imbued within this paradoxically intimate yet elusive, familiar yet foreign memory. 

The more songs I added to the playlist, the more profound and nuanced these emotions became; the more I listened, the more often I would transport myself into the mysteriousness of this parallel universe, captivated by a version of existence that so vastly contrasted my mostly idyllic and solitary daily life. It turns out that by both harnessing this vindictive energy to prove my past self wrong and emulating the spirit of this “certain vibe,” I eventually did manage to end up in a relationship, which ended up lasting almost two years. While I do have plenty of fond memories within that relationship, there persisted the same kind of emotional capriciousness and turmoil that had haunted me in the past. Whether provoked by the minutiae of daily life, the petty instances of misunderstanding, or by a genuinely significant emotional rift in our interactions, there were many moments where I would mire myself in an oppressive miasma of anger, frustration, or jealousy, which typically eventually devolved into old habits of self-pity, apathy, and complacency. I became jerked around like a puppet—a helpless and woeful victim of my circumstances. Despite all this determination and strife to redeem my past self by proving I could get into a relationship, I now realized that I was trying to prove the entirely wrong thing. What I needed to change most about myself was not my ability to fit in, to effectively socialize, to put on a mask of confidence, or to ameliorate my loneliness in particular; no—these were all but symptoms of a larger problem in my life that I had been blind to. The underlying problem was just how heavily I relied on my emotions to navigate not merely within relationships, but the broader scope of life as a whole. 

“A Certain Vibe” does not necessarily represent a life solely consumed by relationships, sex, alcohol, drugs, and an overarching hedonism, despite the recurring motifs of such that exist in the premise of many songs in the playlist. Rather, at its core, it represents a fundamentally unpredictable life—one tossed by the whim of circumstance, wrought by torrents of emotion, and thoroughly engrossed by myopic, often selfish desire. The ultimate goal of such a lifestyle is to maximize the degree of sensual experience—if not merely induced by psychoactive substances, provoked by the thrill of the party, aroused by the seductive, inexorable pull of sex and romance. And to achieve such a goal, it inevitably devolves into a game to appease or seduce others by maximizing perceptions of attractiveness—fashion and physicality, wealth and status, charisma and confidence. But not only did one have to possess this laundry list of qualities, but, more importantly, this lifestyle demanded the kind of resilience to endure this emotional whirlpool whose degree of strength depended entirely on the whimsical, arbitrary perceptions of others. 

Alas, as I eventually learned the hard way, these were games I was never quite willing to play. This bravado that had once spurred me on an almost maniacal quest for redemption had predictably petered out. Being on the extreme end of the continuum of agreeableness, a life dictated by emotion was untenable; interpersonal conflicts, ruled by emotional impulse, proliferated irrationality and thus unpredictability, often making them both psychologically oppressive and monumentally difficult to solve. Being heavily biased towards introversion didn’t exactly help me either; forcing myself to engage in a myriad of social interactions—often superficial, petty, and vapid, at that—was extremely draining and arduous. In many ways, I envy the unrestrained and carefree abandon characteristic of this life, but I have concluded now that I can neither succeed in nor ultimately find happiness in it; my emotional and intellectual disposition is simply not designed to tolerate the capriciousness and vapidity of such a lifestyle. Despite my past fascination and awe, I know that I will never be able to fully immerse myself in this world—this certain vibe. At this point in my life, I've acknowledged that given the potential I’ve realized in myself, I have far more important work to do in this world than squandering it on this tireless, wearisome search for an elusive soul mate, especially in a world that is continually distancing itself farther and farther from a sound definition of love. 

I haven’t fallen in love in three years. And in those three years, I’ve made immeasurable progress in terms of emotional awareness and maturity. But as much as I claim to have adopted the cultivation of the rational mind and eschewed this pursuit of sensual pleasure, I cannot deny the visceral feeling that arises when faced either the daunting, heart-wrenching prospect of true love, or the seemingly insatiable, ferocious sexual lust that prowls within. When I immerse myself in this certain vibe, I can’t help but feel as if I’m on a romantic precipice, on the verge of falling in love again, on the brink of my world once again collapsing around me. I often forget that even if I’ve made the choice to let my mind dictate the course of my life, I still possess the capability to perceive emotions with such profundity and intensity in a way that can effortlessly derail any rational train of thought. I will never be able to extricate this romantic idealist from my inner self, that even despite all my efforts to remain calm in the face of chaos and rational in the face of ignorance, I remain susceptible to this inexorable yearning of my heart. But perhaps, there is nothing wrong with that. Perhaps, there is as much truth to be found in that feeling as there is anywhere else. 

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.”

— Blaise Pascal