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Swipe-Right Marketplace

          My title for this essay is stolen from a chapter title in Sophfronia Scott’s wonderful book, The Seeker and the Monk.  In this chapter Scott talks about Thomas Merton’s relationship with the young nurse.  In fact, the chapter is really a story of Merton’s quest for love and, in turn, implicates the quest of love that we all undertake.  In so doing Scott refers to Merton’s insightful little piece entitled, “A Buyer’s Market for Love.” (157)  Scott describes this piece as the one which “speaks best to what love has become in our current society---an ongoing quest that takes us outside of ourselves and into a realm that Merton referred to as a market where we trade in love, looking for the best deal possible.”

            Scott begins her commentary.  “I want someone to love me.  Whenever I read or hear someone say that, I picture a person stripped bare, standing with palms up, the essence of vulnerability.  The image is breathtaking in its beauty, frightening in its truth.  I think we all walk around like that inside.” (158)  Her comments are breathtaking.  I want to recoil and say that is not how it is---or was---for me.  But this would be a lie.  I agree that at times and, maybe, all the time, we are all saying, I want someone to love me.

            She is correct in naming vulnerability as the chief requirement for love---whether we want love or want to love.  Without vulnerability, we fake some kind of love.  Most telling to me is Scott’s insight that we all walk around like that inside.  I know this is where it was for me.  Having said that is to admit that I did not want to be vulnerable.  I didn’t even want to appear to be vulnerable.  And where there is no vulnerability, there can be no trust.  That is why so many folks resort to control or manipulation.  They want the fruits of love, but without the vulnerability of trust.

            I like Scott’s analysis.  Since we are walking around with this inside desire for love, she comments, “We clothe ourselves to hide this shame of this want.  Some even go further---they put on armor.  And they continue , layer after layer, until no one can see or even sense the light glowing from their vulnerability.”  Scott is correct to call our experience shame.  Shame is the experience of wanting to hide---not want to be seen or revealed.  Clothes are the typical outward way of avoiding shame. 

            Scott’s analysis continues in intriguing ways.  About us she notes, “They hide what makes the lovable, all the whole claiming to want love.  They put themselves on the market, a place where, as Merton writes, ‘love is regarded as a deal…In order to make a deal you have to appear in the market with a worthwhile product…We unconsciously think of ourselves as objects for sale on the market.’”  It is at this point that Scott aligns herself with Merton’s analysis of this marketplace notion of love.  Let’s continue.

            Merton’s key idea is that we think about ourselves as objects, not persons.  Merton writes, “We size each other up and make deals with a view to our own profit.  We do not give ourselves in love, we make a deal that will enhance our own product and therefore no deal is final.”  To read this is quite sobering.  How many times I have “sized up” someone!  And how many times have I been “sized up,” sometimes knowing it was happening to me and sometimes unaware”

            I am taken aback when Merton says that no deal is final.  We are tempted to think that in the marketplace, we can buy the product and take it home.  That is true for products, but we can’t buy people and take them home.  Oh, of course, we can take someone home---or marry them and buy a home---but they are not “ours.”  They are not a product.  Why is this?  Because if we view someone else as a product, then things like commitment, respect and all the rest are at stake.  I think Merton is correct.  I don’t respect my car!  To paraphrase Merton, we all keep looking for new deals.

            Scott adds to Merton’s analysis by rightly saying, “this market is now digital and breathtakingly fast.  In the seconds it takes to swipe right or swipe left in a dating app, multiple deals can be made.  But the swipe-right culture makes us too quick to discard, to quick to judge.  While I have never made us of a dating app, I don’t claim superiority.  I am just too old.  But if I were young, I suspect I would be part of the swipe-right culture. 

            The word, spiritual, has not been mentioned in this essay.  But it is deeply spiritual.  It is spiritual if we recognize we are dealing with human beings and not products.  It is spiritual because human beings are creatures looking for love.  This is perfectly normal, especially if we talk about God as love.  Love is an energy and this is what we feel as that desire. That desire does put us on a quest.  Our quest if for others and, ultimately, an Other.  Love propels us to reach out and embrace others and allow ourselves to be embraced by the Lover of the Universe. 

            It is sad---indeed tragic---when we settle for a facsimile, a reproduction or product.  Instead of the marketplace, I believe this suggest the need for spiritual communities.  But that is another essay. 

           

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