Products People Love

I've been trying to figure out what exactly it is I want to do with my life. And although I'm not claiming at all to have any clue whatsoever, I might have stumbled upon a piece of it.

I'm a romantic at heart. Not in the sense that I like long walks on the beach or watching the sunrise from the top of Machupichu (ok, I would actually probably really like that), but in the sense that my life is all together too dominated by the pursuit of love. As far back as I can remember, I never thought boys were gross, ever. And now, through hookups and breakups, I'm still chasing after some great love. It's the one thing that throughout my life, I have always known that I wanted - simply someone that loved me. Sniff. Sniffle.

So if being loved is what I'm looking for, let me turn that energy to what I want to do in my life. A few days ago as I was checking out a big list of web 2.0 companies, I glazed over so many of them, bored. I realized that I wanted to work on products that elicit emotional responses from their users. Preferably, positive emotional responses. And I wanted something where I could see that emotional response. Where I could actually maybe meet that user. I wanted to touch people, to move them, emotionally. I realized that what I wanted was for a user to love the product that I had a hand in building because in the end, I wanted to be loved.

This all sounds soooo pathetic. But it's what makes me happy. It makes me feel whole. And that I have done good. I remember going into interviews out of college, and telling people that I simply wanted to build products that helped people. That made them smile or improved their lives. Really, it was so much more selfish than that. I wanted people to love me. The unending pursuit of the fundamentally social creature.

Love is such a complicated thing. And maybe I'm just now beginning to understand the difference between loving and liking. Love is a raw, uncontrollable emotional desire. Liking is everything else minus hate.