One of my favorite pictures on my phone is a selfie I took with two strangers. They were full-grown adults, and they were fully sucking face in the middle of a dance floor. I also love how I look in the picture. Why is it that I always look better in photos I wouldn’t contemplate posting on Instagram?

There’s something so paradoxical about a dance floor makeout — such a private moment in such a public place. I think dance floor makeouts are part of the reason I understand what Jay Gatsby was saying when he said he loved large parties because of how intimate they were. Large parties offer people the anonymity necessary to kiss in public.

I thought kissing was the most romantic thing when I was little. I still kind of do — you don’t really know if someone like-likes you until they kiss you.

“True Love’s Kiss” was a trope in almost all of my favorite movies growing up. It wasn’t true love that saved Sleeping Beauty, or Snow White; it was “True Love’s Kiss.” There was something magical about kissing; it was transformative.

Sometime between then and now, maybe after my gross first kiss with a boy I hardly knew who smelled like roast beef, I discovered kissing isn’t always an ultimate display of love. Especially kisses that are exchanged in crowds of people.

Public displays of affection, in general, are polarizing at best and downright pornographic at worst. Some people claim to find dance floor makeouts disgusting. Those same people love to talk about who they saw necking who.

Like any stigmatized social phenomenon, dance floor makeouts give us the opportunity to judge someone’s character based on their choices.

Back to those two adults I took a selfie with. Their dance floor makeout was so sensual — the way his pinky was stroking the small of her back and her head would rest on his chest when they came up for air.

I can’t help but wonder, were those two so in love that they couldn’t help but passionately kiss in front of everyone in the middle of the dance floor? Or is their relationship so fraught they feel they need to be held accountable for their moments of intimacy?

When love is public, does it become more real?

If those two tacky adults’ dance floor makeout was “True Love’s Kiss,” I think I have a few more questions about what true love really is. More likely, they got to a point in the evening where they realized life was short and their party was big so may as well suck face like there’s no tomorrow.

Sylvie Slotkin is a Medill sophomore. She can be contacted at sylvieslotkin2027@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.