LUVOPOLY

Is love truly a game? Do we have to roll the dice and see where it lands us? 

This piece is heavily inspired by the most well-known board game, Monopoly. I grew up playing the game and loved it, just like any child growing up in the 2000s. Monopoly has hundreds, maybe even thousands, of different iterations of the base game. LUVOPOLY is my version: the game of love. 

This is the last piece of my mini series called “Games We Play.” The first piece is chess (All's Fair in Love & War, then poker (A Bad Hand), and lastly, Monopoly (LUVOPOLY). Each piece in the series depicts a different side of how love and games are related. Chess is a battle between two people. Poker is a gamble between all of the players, and Monopoly is about getting as much real estate as possible before going bankrupt. 

When I was first coming up with the concept for this piece, love felt like a game at that point in my life. Feeling like you were gambling with your feelings, trying to plan out your next move, and making sure you had everything in check before jumping into something new. And it was exhausting. 

LUVOPOLY was mainly based on my friends and my own experience, specifically with dating apps. The online dating world is more popular than ever in our day and age, but that doesn’t mean it’s always positive or successful. You will occasionally hear a success story, a young couple meets on a dating app and lives happily ever after, simple enough, right? Well, that’s not the majority of people’s experiences. A lot of people lack communication, aren’t clear about what they want, talk to 10 or more people at once, so you’re overwhelmed by choices, go on a single date with someone, and then ghost them right after. The list goes on and on.

At first glance, the board looks straightforward; the first space is to download a dating app, and the last one is to get married. But some roadblocks get in the way. Cancelling dates, getting ghosted, miscommunication, asking what we are, and of course, breaking up are all things we experience when we step into the dating world. 

Do you have what it takes to get to the dating finish line?

"It's a free world, all you have to do is fall in love
Play the game
Everybody, play the game of love"

- Play The Game by Queen