ZOE GONZALES / DAILY NEXUS
Finding love in Isla Vista: Yes you can!
By Kira Logan
I know, I know. Yes, I’m talking about the same Isla Vista that is seemingly infested with almost every non-committal person to walk the earth. The same Isla Vista that considers a sunset walk to Dev’s “something serious,” and preaches the saying: “U Can Study Buzzed.”
The same Isla Vista that treats the fourth floor of the library like breeding grounds for your next hook-up (and where you always see your most recent one) is the Isla Vista that I proclaim you can find love in.
Have I failed at finding love here? Yes. Have I also been successful? Yes. Both can be true, but I believe the latter is more common.
Over a year ago, I was unknowingly met with a chance for love, here, between El Colegio and Picasso Road: a blind date to my sorority date party. My expectations to the floor and fingers crossed behind my back that he would be taller than me, I ended up with a surplus of love that unraveled in my life for the next eight months. Despite its end, love cannot be erased; our shoulders will always be bound with recollections.
Love precedes us; it is not conditional but rather permeates regardless of what we do or who we fear we are. Sometimes I think that love knows something we don’t. We can’t schedule love, we can’t ward it off or lure it to us—it just is. Love will be fed to us with a silver spoon, but we must first open our mouths.
How can one argue for the lack of love in I.V. when it oozes out of every crevice of my life here, like ripe watermelon in July?
I see love when my roommates excitedly squeal upon my arrival home. I see love when all of the I.V. residents congregate to watch the sunset at Campus Point every night. I see love on the grass patch in front of the library, where everyone is sunbathing and presumably procrastinating work.
I will admit that as a concept, I.V. sounds like a social experiment or a weird reality TV dating show: a two mile radius of a town stuffed to the brim with college students living on the beach. At the precipice of adulthood, we are left with each other to find solace in the unknown of the future.
Despite the unrealistic confines, I can concur that the love created and shared here is as tangible as the chipped porcelain teacup your grandmother keeps on the top shelf: a relic of whispered conversations and time well spent.
Here is a list of times love has found me in I.V. when I wasn’t even looking for it (I promise):
A stranger approaching me on his bike in front of Campbell Hall to say I looked “cool and mysterious” (I’ve held that compliment with me three years later and counting)
Someone bonding with me over the book I’m reading in front of The Arbor (The Secret History by Donna Tartt will always elicit a squeal or two)
A girl in my class complimenting my skirt that I was anxious to wear (My exhale could be heard across campus)
My roommates framing my article about us in our house (Proof that your work is never as bad as you swear it is)
My ex-boyfriend and I choosing a new movie to watch every night instead of going out (My Letterboxd had never been so active)
Every time I see a friend from my freshman year dorm on campus (It’s like sunshine on my heart)
My professor using my article as an example of “good creative writing” on her slideshow presentation (She didn’t even know I was in her class)
Sending my outfit of the days to my favorite UC Berkeley student
and receiving the same amount of enthusiasm every day (Love transcends UC barriers) (And maybe every other barrier too)
And about a million other times that have permanently altered how I love (How can I say that love is hard to find when it’s all that I am?)
Love is as small as spotting a ladybug on a blade of grass and considering it good luck; love is as grandiose a thousand white roses delivered to your doorstep. Most importantly, love is everything in the middle: giving early morning hugs, cooking late night meals, and the constant calmness you’ve always hoped would find its way to you.
Once you start looking for it, you won’t be able to stop finding it.
Kira Logan unsurprisingly is an advocate for love…again.
Del Playa on a Friday night answers: Can you find love in I.V.?
By Jack Dindia
With Valentine’s Day upon us, you’re either going to be spending it with that special someone, wishing it was with that special someone or daydreaming about the concept of a special someone.
Here at UC Santa Barbara, there’s 26,000 students all from various backgrounds, all roughly the same age and likely similar-leveled libidos. So, for the sake of Valentine’s Day festivities, I couldn’t help but ask the dying question almost every UCSB student has: Can you find love here in Isla Vista?
Well, the answer to that question is kind of obvious: yes, you can. In fact, Daily Nexus has already proved this, several times! There have been many couples who met at UCSB and Isla Vista who have been married for decades. But that’s kind of boring, and this was a long time ago; before the existence of social media, dating apps and even liberal men. I wasn’t content with these answers, I needed to ask Isla Vista myself. And when better to do that than on a Friday night on Del Playa Drive?
So I drink some water and skip out on the alcohol since I’m only 20. I knew if I wanted a good answer I needed to engage these drunk party goers head on and immediately grab their attention. Most people consented to giving me answers, but didn’t want to be recorded or disclose any of their information.
From the people who agreed to chat, there were a surprising amount of noes. A lot of people gave the answer, “Well, you’re not going to find love at a party but you can probably find it in class,” or some variation of that answer. This just left me wanting to prove them wrong. Hell, I’d bet someone was falling in love at a party right then and there.
A lot of people also said that I.V. is too centered around “hook-up culture.” Plenty of people told me that if you have what seems to be a special encounter with someone, it’s likely to just be some sort of fling or one night stand. This gave me a new goal: talk to people who seem like they could be in love with each other.
So, I start talking to people who look like couples. A boy and a girl holding hands gave me surprisingly different answers; she said yes, he said no. This seemed to spark some tension for them, and as much as I wanted to pry, I didn’t want to be responsible for someone ugly-crying that night.
At this point, I’ve walked to the boring part of DP. All parties were behind me and everyone seemed to be walking in the opposite direction as me. I’m starting to feel defeated. The movie “Love Actually” tells us that if you look for it, “love is all around you.” And here I am, having searched all night with no love to show for it. Now I’m in the fetal position in the middle of DP, crying while covering my eyes with my shirt. In a twist of fate, I’m the one ugly-crying after all.
In my seemingly lowest Friday night yet, something catches the corner of my eyes. Two people, joyously walking, holding some tacos wrapped in a plastic bag. I called my mother. “Mom,” I said, “I think I just found love.”
I walk over to them and ask if they’re a couple, they answer yes. Finally, I’ve found love in I.V.
Luke Banehan, a fourth-year biology major, and Niyaz Hinte, a recent UCSB alumna, met in their chemistry class. Banehan thought Hinte was “super cute” and tried talking to her, but she wasn’t interested. The following year, he sees her talking to a mutual friend when he thinks, “I should go up to her.” He asked for her number, which she agreed to. He then asked her to hang out, to which she answered no. Finally, the day before Valentine’s Day, he asked her to hang out for the third time, and she finally said yes.
Banehan and Hinte both said you can find love in I.V., it’s “possible but rare.”
“You just have to hold out for the right person and have high standards,” Hinte said.
When asked if I.V. is too centered around hook-up culture to find love, Hinte said, “It is, but I think if you believe there’s better out there, there will be.” Banehan said, “I think it also depends on where you meet. If you’re meeting at a party, when you’re both drunk, you’re not having the right mindset.”
So finally, after a whole night of scrambling for interviews, I finally witnessed a love that blossomed in I.V. Yes, maybe they didn’t meet drunkenly at a party that night, which is what I was hoping for. And I guess from the couple I interviewed, the secret to finding love in I.V. is … not taking no for an answer? That doesn’t sound right. But, at the least I can confidently answer from second-hand experience that love may actually be, everywhere? I guess?
Jack Dindia has watched one too many rom-coms in the last year
A version of this article appeared on p. 9 of the February 13, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
