Do you remember the Gwyneth Paltrow movie, Sliding Doors? It is an amusing story on how as seemingly mundane a thing as missing the train could drastically change one’s life circumstances. In its conclusion, though, it also shows how things that are meant to happen eventually do, only with different situations and people leading to the same ending.
A recent experience got me thinking about this; destiny vs. meaningless coincidences.
Recently, I have been feeling really agitated. I’m turning 27 in less than a week and, really, this No-boyfriend-since-birth bullshit is not funny anymore. Now that other things that used to worry me silly have stabilized somehow, more space for self-pity and sulking was freed up in my brain. I am beginning to seriously feel afraid that there must indeed be something immensely wrong with me.
One close friend pointed out that this is condition is probably attributable to my “one-sided, unbelievable standards.” Of course I was quick to disagree. First of all, my standards (if you may call them as such) are not unbelievable. Although I do have “minimum requirements,” ala-software program. Still, I honestly don’t think they could even be remotely described as “unbelievable. Secondly, I do not think these “minimum requirements” are one-sided. I am a very pragmatic person and I am certain I will never delude myself with imaginings of me being with a hunky, genius, super athletic millionaire cum philanthropic man. What I want is merely based on my assessment of my own market value—and if you have been exposed to how insecure and self-deprecating I sometimes get, you know that isn’t really much.
Realistically speaking, however, who would want to be with a person he/she couldn’t stand? Would you choose to be romantically involved with someone who possesses traits that make you cringe?
I Missed You
Many of us are in love with the idea of “signs.” These are seen like some beckon from a higher order that tells what the next move should be or if we are on the right track. While I consider myself as practical, I will not deny that there is a considerable part of me that also subscribes to this concept.
It was on that fateful (at least for me) Sunday that I more seriously thought about the possibility of “signs” being real. Because that’s the day I met you.
It is not that I was so attracted to you nor did I find you wildly astonishing. More than anything, it was the circumstances that threw us together in that place and time that amused me. And, I admit, still continues to amuse and bewilder me to this day. What was I thinking, attending a seminar totally unrelated to my line of interest on a Sunday morning? And you, what were you doing there too? Could it be just pure coincidence that in an event I would have normally passed up on but went to nonetheless, I met you? Isn’t there some divine reason, unknown then and now to you and me, why we were the only ones in a roomful of people who cannot speak the language that everyone else shared? How could I correctly label time, people, place, and circumstance that seem to fit oh-so-well together as either merely fortuitous, accidental or as “signs” and events that are “meant to be” and just “waiting to happen”?
Amazing. Instant click. In a span of several hours, we have talked about a myriad of things that strangers do not usually discuss. It is not the first time that I eagerly carried on an intelligent conversation with someone I just met, but I was never as interested as I was then. Right there, in the middle of the room where every soul conversed in a language neither of us could understand, we talked and talked and talked until it was already time for me to leave.
And then I got paranoid. And I panicked. I got on my feet and told you goodbye, but I was fumbling in my bag for my phone. In my head, I wanted to say, “Wait, I’ll get your number!” Then I changed my mind. My hand dove back in my bag to get my wallet. “Ah, I’ll give you my card!”
It is a cinch for others, I know. Well, not for me. I am courageous and resilient on most occasions. I am brave about many things. But not this. Ergo, I managed to neither get your number nor give you my calling card.
They say that the things we mean the most are the hardest to say. Which explains why it is often so difficult to say ‘I am sorry.’ That is why it is so difficult to say ‘I love you.’ Or, as in my latest display of cowardice, it was just so unbearable to say a casual, ‘Can I have your number?’ or ‘Here is my card.’
And so I missed you. Like the Sliding Doors character’s missed train. Only in her case, she did not know at all that the rest of her future has been significantly altered by a seemingly insignificant circumstance. But unlike her, I am fully aware of this missed shot. And I want to kick myself each time I remember.
Hell, why do I worry so? Perhaps you simply went your own way, absorbed in your own concerns, with nary a thought about the day that just passed or the girl you shared your ideas with the entire time. Perhaps I am like Teresa in Milan Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being: reading too much into things, striving to find meaning, trying hard to make connections where there is really none.
Still, you are now officially one of my life’s big “WHAT IFs?”
At the back of my head, I hear Sting and Sheryl Crow sing, “Are we left to wander all alone eternally? Tell me is this how it is really meant to be?”
Or maybe we could be heading toward a mutually joyous ending, regardless of delays and numerous course changes?
Oh, but that would be wishful thinking.
