I find your conclusion disappointing, not b/c I want you to love the symposium, but b/c you have missed much of what is interesting. People care about Socrates story of the Ladder of Love b/c it is a humanistic vision of love broadening out beyond interpersonal relationships or conventional notions to embrace big things: ideas, discourse, life-work, wisdom – but including those people you love, whom you want to bring with you in appreciation of these things. It has been interpreted as a defense of liberal arts education – it’s what we do here.

I don’t see where you can go for a revision of this paper. You have trapped yourself in nihilism; perhaps you want to argue that love and life are all an illusion, that such idealism is useless? You could try that – Nietzche did.