Henry Freytag ‘24
It is time for the Romantic Advice Column follow up responses. Unfortunately, the timely submissions were slanderous in nature, and ones we could not publish. In the future, please keep identifying information out of Romantic Advice column questions. The submission that we did receive came in too late for all three advisors to weigh in, but Josh Cohen managed!
How can I tell if someone is flirting with me or if they’re just being nice?
Josh: Human language is a marvel yet is often as ambiguous as it is impressive. To solve this problem, philosophy of language arose to closely analyze the nuances of language. For cases such as this, John L. Austin’s speech act theory can be applied. At a high level, this theory breaks down speech into its literal meaning (a locutionary act) and its implied actions (an illocutionary act. While this is a high level description of a complex idea, this is enough to approach the question at hand. Flirting often has very indirect speech acts and with the underlying goal of expressing romantic interest. Nice compliments typically are much more direct. There is no need in being nice to take a roundabout approach. So to answer the question, consider the illocutionary acts of the comment.
To fill in the gap in this column update, here is a special Valentine’s Day issue questionnaire:
What does love mean to you?
In order to provide honest answers, all responses are anonymous.
Respondent 1: Love means to let someone into your soul. When you walk with that person you’re not just walking with them physically, your souls are walking alongside each other as well. They can always tell how you’re feeling and vise versa, because in a way you’re two parts of a whole. Love means having transparency as well. Sharing your emotions and experiences completely unfiltered.
Respondent 2: As an AI, I don’t have personal emotions or experiences, but love is often described as a deep affection and connection towards someone or something.
Respondent 3: Love, at least in the romantic sense, is the purest of connections that two beings can have. True love’s meaning cannot be perfectly described with words; feeling love is the only unfiltered way of knowing what love truly is. Love is a personal, spiritual, and physical connection that merges two people into a state almost as if they are one, and within its confines are some of the strongest feelings of safety, care, compassion, and joy. Love is, by nature, two sided, and consequently, is one of the greatest things life has to offer.