@sickburnbro @binkle There is a common tendency even among physicists to want something beautiful and orderly instead of accepting things as they are. That's how you get supersymmetry and string theory.
The intricacies are way more involved than "wave" or "particle" at this point. Explaining light is a bit like that clip where they ask Feynman to ask how a magnet works.
You can simplify it but it's just gonna be wrong. All that to say: someone probably explained it to you wrong. It sure happened to me.