Synthesize the following compound using only toluene as the carbon source-
I have never done something like this before and I have no clue on how to start. I am even more confused by the fact that the top two phenyl groups are meta substituted despite having a methyl group which is suppose to be ortho and para directing.
From an answer below it states I need to use Friedel–Crafts acylation. However I am not entirely sure how to do this. This is my guess:
Convert toluene into benzoic acid using $\ce{KMnO4}$ and then react half of it with $\ce{SOCl2}$ to form $\ce{C6H5COCl}$. Then react that with the other half of the benzoic acid followed by Wolff–Kishner reduction to form the below molecule:
After this, I am not sure how to chlorinate it so that I do another acylation.