Dépaysement in the Digital Ballroom
On the disorientation of love in the age of swipes
“Online dating is its own kind of dépaysement: familiar and foreign at once, as though love itself had become a country of strangers.”
Dear Wanderer,
Last week I stepped back into the strange ballroom of dating. Except here, the chandeliers are glowing screens, and the music is nothing but the rhythm of swipes. There’s a word I keep circling around as I scroll through faces and fragments: dépaysement.
This app feels like a foreign land — so many strangers, each carrying their own landscapes of desires and distractions. And here I am, searching for a familiar face, for the person who once was my home. Deep down I know I am far from home, yet I try once again to call someone my dear home.
Et voilà, j’éprouve ce sentiment de dépaysement. C’est une sensation étrange : parfois une douce mélancolie, parfois le désir de partir en exploration et de rencontrer de nouvelles personnes. Il y a quelques années, on rencontrait quelqu’un naturellement — il n’y avait pas de Facebook, de TikTok ni de Tinder. Chaque rencontre avait un parfum de romantisme.
Je sais que je suis une âme insouciante, et je serais ravi si je pouvais croiser quelqu’un dans un café, en flânant dans un parc ou même à la salle. Mais je me sens perdu quand je dois utiliser une application pour chercher celui qui deviendrait un chez-moi.
Non si prova dépaysement soltanto quando ci si trova in una terra straniera, tra volti sconosciuti e culture diverse. Lo stesso principio vale per le app di incontri. L’attesa, la speranza di un abbinamento con la persona che ci piace, e poi il vuoto di non essere scelti: tutto questo ci lascia smarriti, soli, confusi. È come visitare una terra sconosciuta, lontana da casa.
E allora mi chiedo: troverò mai quella persona che diventi una nuova casa in questo paese straniero?
De l’errant à l’errant,
D. Orlando
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When silence becomes the loudest truth
Dear Wanderer,
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils…”
Wordsworth saw what solitude truly is — not an absence, but a quiet presence that opens the heart. In aloneness, he found beauty: flowers dancing, clouds drifting, the soul expanding.
Today, I thought of him as I stood before an old windmill. Its blades no longer turn; it has withstood storms, rains, and now rusts slowly with time. Grass and wildflowers keep it company, and sometimes a bird lands, whispering the stories of the skies. Yet, like Wordsworth’s wandering cloud, the windmill is not diminished by its solitude. It is strengthened by it.
Donc , On doit apprécier la solitude. Peut-être tu penses que si tu gardes le silence dans la vie, personne ne te remarquera et tu deviendras un moulin oublié dans l’arrière-plan. Au contraire, le silence parle fort. Il annonce ton courage et ta prudence. Comme ce moulin, je reste debout, les pieds ancrés dans la roche au-dessous, et je confronte le vent qui souffle dans toutes les directions — face à face.
As we grow older, we learn this truth. The noise fades: the urgency of crowded nights out, the rush of voices. In their place comes something richer — a quiet evening, a book, a familiar show. Solitude ceases to be frightening. It becomes a companion.
“And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”
Le moulin m’a soufflé que la solitude n’est point faiblesse. Elle nous apaise, nous rend immobiles et inébranlables, sans crainte — et dans ce calme profond s’éveille une joie plus intime, plus pure.
From the errant to the errant,
D. Orlando