Finding Someone: There Isn’t a How-To
Think about how you met your best friend. It was probably by chance or circumstances. You two were lab partners and you clung to her knowledge on biology while simultaneously cracking jokes to entertain yourself, mostly, but her as well. Perhaps, it wasn’t so ‘80s movie’ style, and maybe you two were just neighbors that grew up together. Typically, the stories are always varying.
As I wrote this, however, I pondered whether the pair next to me had met on these circumstances. They laughed with an ease of enjoyment, however, it wasn’t clear if this ease was due to a past friendship, or just a ramification of good conversation. It wasn’t even quite clear whether friendship was their dictated label or something more. If they were friends, many may not pay much attention to their ‘meeting’ story. Most likely it’d be in the lines of “Oh, we were in a class together last year.” I mean, often, we only inquire how friendships started if we’re aware of some larger than life bond, or if the two seem an unlikely pairing. If this is so then why is it then that in instances of romantic partners we are enthralled with this question? It is even posed as though it holds some potential for a magical glimpse into the recipe for success. The velocity behind why one places so much emphasis on entering a relationship is a different discussion, however, there’s still some kind of telling factor in the importance placed on ‘the meeting’.
How were you told to make friends when you were younger? Be friendly and kind, perhaps, at least in the younger years. In preschool, the focus is more on bluntly asking people to play together, offer them your favorite toy truck, perhaps. (Still a useful tactic now?) As we got older, however, the idea of asking a stranger for friendship became a little less approachable and by adolescent years was obsolete. This is where the ‘join clubs’ and ‘get a hobby’ strategies came into play. It was suddenly less about approaching people in situations already given but rather placing your own self into circumstances that cultivated social interactions and even seemed to force a level of kindredness. That seems too simple, though. Why am I not pals best friends with every single member of every club I have ever compromised? I couldn’t tell you where Stacy from choir freshman year is, but I can tell you that those that I am aware of and, of course, friends with happened due to purely circumstantial bonding that were created and cultivated through the magnetic power of our personality dynamics.
So, take Stacy for example…I don’t know her. It’s not because Stacy is some stuck up, unfriendly, and downright terrible person that I’ve avoided. I’m sure she’s a special girl that is very loved by her friends. It’s just that as humans we never had some connecting factor that caused us to turn to each other repeatedly and develop a friendship. So, yeah, the ‘join a club’ method is really only truly helpful if you encounter individuals that have compatible personalities as your own. Then definitively making friends is not purely circumstantial, but a mixture of putting yourself in the right setting and meeting the right people. Some might say it can be boiled down to, stay with me here, being in the right place at the right time. I know, a completely unique concept that everyone loves to here, because it is such a controllable and wonderfully helpful idea. Sarcasm, aside, this is truly what every ‘meeting’ story comes down to.
Being in the right place at the right time is evidently not very controllable. There is a controlling factor in the way that we all have free will, however, no one is omnipotent enough to know whether joining the poetry club is going to introduce you to your future twin flame. If this is so, if every meeting is truly only by chance, then why is such emphasis placed on forced interactions when it comes to romantic meetings?
Why can the rest of our lives be accepted as fate for the most part, and yet the pining of entering a relationship is somehow streamlined into dating apps, arranged dates, and awkward setups? Why cannot, we as humans live in the now and accept the probability for what it is? Here’s to ending the focus on boosting our chances. Here’s to accepting fate with a deep breath and satisfaction that the circumstances of new friends and romances are inevitably out of our control.