Was ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ actually about the angst of modern dating?

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

— “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, TS Eliot

Not too long ago, I was in grad school tediously trying to decipher the meaning of Eliot’s iconic poem, Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock; slowly but steadily I fell in love with the modernist poem, the imagery, the Prufrockian dilemma – but couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of it all. Somehow, it escaped me then, even after the long hours of close reading sessions with fellow grad students, and some very wise modernist scholars who swore by Eliot and Prufrock, and knew what it all meant.

But Prufrock has eluded me; over the years, he still manages to challenge me, sending me tumbling into a larger existential query – “And how should I presume?” (anything at all).

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

Eliot wrote the love song of a certain Mr Prufrock in 1910, and it thereby became a classic manifestation of modern subjectivity in an existential crisis and dilemma, a reflection of longing and lack and the modern self steeped in indecision. But, over the years, Prufrock has stood for much more to me than just understanding the modernist self or of appreciating the brilliance of literary modernism and that of Eliot.

So let’s consider why Prufrock is especially key to understanding our present postmodern dating culture. I call it the “pomo” dating scene for various reasons. The word “dating” has always eluded me; it represents a lack – a signifier and signified in a crazy nebulous dance, ultimately signifying nothing.

Let me be more specific! Today’s dating scene is like a colossal merry-go-round game – (in the room the) people come and go, riding this somewhat haphazard Ferris wheel, stepping off it more and more dizzy. Men and women coming and going at chaotic speed, signifying absolutely nothing, other than a few days, or sometimes even moments of brief connection that pass like an ephemeral memory of some cheap love story.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky

A dear friend of mine recently told me an interesting story. A guy at her local Starbucks asked her out; apparently they had made eye contact while peering over the books (they were not reading). She was the picky type, but something in her pickiness was piqued by the sudden onset of witty and cryptic attention from this handsome stranger.

He asked her out on a date and she enthusiastically agreed. She called me after her first date and gushed about how it was sparkling with good humor, charisma, interest and great intellectual conversation – just the way first dates never really are! So, of course, a second date was looming on the cards.

The second date was an elaborately planned event of some boring lecture by an author in the city, and they hit it off, still interested in each other, which I thought sounded unbelievable coming from my friend who never has a good word to say about her highly selective dating stories. The second date ended in some revelatory conversations about how much they liked each other, some quick kisses at the train station and hand holding during which Mr Charming emphasised that he wanted to go slow, especially because he liked her so much.

Well then, for the third date, my friend sought my advice – she wanted to make the next move and ask him out to do something special. She told me that he had said he was looking forward to it, and so the third date also happened. More great conversation, some wine-led intoxication, some more kissing and then behold, the revelation – he explained to her in all good honesty the meaning of “going slow” in the modern dating narrative so that she wasn’t deluded with any lack of clarity.

Apparently, the phrase means that Mr Charming was being charming to many other ladies out there. He was into an “open dating” system that I am now told is a very common trend amongst the youngsters and the not so youngsters of today.

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions

“Open dating,” for the lack of any better definition is a system where men and women continuously date one another simultaneously, even get cozy, but it is never really mutually exclusive – it is a free for all Ferris wheel, moving at a fast pace, where people get on and off rapidly, sizing and assessing each other within days or even a few hours, making fast conclusions, and thus, inferring who the better product is in the market!

And I have known the arms already, known them all –
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

The idea is a very simple but significant one – keep adroitly balancing many partners, until a clear winner appears who makes the others fade away! Then you know, you have arrived at your perfect love story and are ready to jump off this Ferris wheel and start a real relationship.

I thought: What a fascinating theory put into praxis to find life’s significant other. Was it not possible that all such open daters find something attractive, unique and beautiful in almost everyone they meet? What kind of an obsidian pool, a fetish of perfect partners have we created in this survival of the fittest game, where the “fit” is an impossibility, a miasma over something real, eternally unattainable!

Perhaps it is just symptomatic of the age of free market dating phenomenon – where one needs to evaluate as many men or women out there to find out who makes the cut. Competition is important, but so is quality control, good readers!

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

But wait, that is not all. There is more to this fantastic dating narrative that has developed from the age-old game. In the worldwide casting call of online dating, there are apps galore that present the enticement of the perfect romantic ideal with unending choices. In the crazy matrix of our online lives, we turn to our phones and computer screens for answers to our loneliness and lacks. We swipe left or right, have momentary chats or even meet for dates via these websites and then people “ghost” on each other as if they never existed at all.

I recently learned that this spooky noun now performs as a verb – meaning, after some good bonding over chats, skype calls and even in person meetings, people vanish from each other’s lives for no apparent reason. It’s just that the connection really wasn’t strong enough to last, because the next product came along, prettier, more handsome, sexier, wittier, et al – though with an expiry date!

As for my friend, she understood the game and got off as quickly as she had hopped on to this merry-go-round. She was disappointed at first, but retained enough of her sense of humour to talk about it months later. Which brings me back to Mr Prufrock and the uncanny likeness he brings to our postmodern subjectivities.

Perhaps we are all, like Prufrock:

“Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous –
Almost, at times, the Fool”

I see him in a new light now, in our present moment. And I find myself musing: what would Mr Prufrock do in our times? Perhaps he wouldn’t wait for “human voices to wake” him anymore. Perhaps we all have just died a little bit inside and are also waiting for Lazarus to return from the dead and joggle our senses.

Amrita Ghosh has a Ph D in English and teaches at Seton Hall University, New Jersey.