The timing of the online sighting of my ex (the effects of which I chronicled here) got me wondering. Because our brains look for, or at least my brain does, connections and “coincidences” often where none exist, I was curious to see if our profiles matched up on the same day we had matched up 5 years ago. We want (or like to see) signs that the cosmos makes sense or is somehow speaking to us. We want to believe that the cosmos gives a shit (it doesn’t), and that our orbits are not guided solely by our own actions. In some respects, this relieves us of full responsibility for life’s outcomes. In some respects, this gives us faith in something beyond the self.
This curiosity sent me looking for evidence of when we first connected. At one point, I think I had screenshots of our online conversation. We were cute and funny and at the time I thought it would be good to save our “how we met story” for posterity’s sake. I had also met my wife online, and I vaguely remember a time in our marriage when we both lamented that we hadn’t saved our first online conversations. Apparently I don’t have the screenshots – at least not on my phone or anywhere I can think of on my computer.
When we broke up, I exported our entire text thread to a word doc. At the time, I wanted to read through and look for where we went wrong. Reading a word file was easier than scrolling through hundreds (thousands?) of texts. I read it twice, maybe more, and never found a “smoking gun.” Trying to follow my hunch (because I can be a bulldog with his favorite toy when it comes to research and details and memory), I checked the text thread. Our first text messages were on the 15th which supports my theory that we connected on the 13th or 14th because we would have exchanged a few messages on the dating app for a day or two before we exchanged phone numbers. For those not in the know, it’s a pretty common practice in online dating to take the conversation off of the app quickly, but not before getting a good sense of whether or not the other person is a creep or an ax murderer.
I didn’t read very many of the texts – though I laughed at our banter in the page or two that I did read. We were pretty good at that banter thing – better than most. I was at a concert at Snipes Farm on the 15th. She asked if there were animals on the farm. I replied “There are small animals.” “I think some turkeys and pheasants may be goats.” Some time had passed and when I checked my messages to see if she replied, I saw the typo. I added, “That last typo cracks me up….. I’m now thinking of birds masquerading as goats.” Which then cracked her up.
Sadly (or not), that’s me at my best. Cracking myself up and hopefully others too. I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to what I consider to be witty banter and fun wordplay. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but she matched me on this level. Better than most. I said something about not being good at texting, having unusually fat fingers, it’s a condition please don’t stare. She asked if I would be wearing gloves on our date and offered to wear a pair of gloves in solidarity. I said something about the fingers only being one condition along with my funny walk and lazy eye. She said her mother always told her a slight gimp and a sweet lazy eye is what made her special, we seem to have a lot in common. It was immature and silly and effortless and we were totally into it.
That might have been the smoking gun… It wasn’t necessarily one thing or argument that could be pinpointed in a text thread, but instead was the tipping of the scales away from everyday banter and levity towards frequent conversations and arguments over logistics and needs and positioning. I suspect that’s a natural and necessary evolution (or erosion) in a romantic relationship. I also suspect (though I’m not going to go back to texts for evidence) that we never lost our levity, it’s just that the other stuff got in the way. The couples counselors and researchers John and Julie Gottman suggest that we need five positive interactions in our relationships and marriages for every one negative interaction. In times of stress or prolonged arguments, it’s difficult to maintain that ratio. As she quit her job and moved in with me, as we negotiated space and time and needs, we weren’t in the five to one sweet spot and we hadn’t had enough practice to make that our default, long-term setting.
I didn’t know any of this relationship research back then, and I was only just beginning to get interested in the psychology of how we connect, grow, maintain, and heal in the presence of others. Reading the Gottmans, and Sue Johnson (Hold Me Tight), and Cheri Huber (Be the Person You Want to Find), and bell hooks (All About Love), and Thich Nhat Hanh, and Adrienne Rich, and Joni Mitchell, and countless poets and quotes about love, loss, and how to survive those two, I feel I’ve developed a certain wisdom – yet never enough. If I’ve discovered anything, it’s that old and obvious truth that change is the only constant and that we will always reveal ourselves in new ways to each other. An important part of that process seems to be in co-creating as you go, reinforcing the positive history you have, and always assuming the best of the other person.
In almost everything I’ve read, there’s this thread of returning to those first innocent moments of when two people fell in love coupled with a constant renewal of choice. Every day that two people choose each other is a day in the win column – especially if it’s a day when not choosing each other is the easier and more attractive option. While seemingly overly sentimental, the poets are pretty good at expressing this. Just yesterday I took a screenshot of some sappy lines from the writer Robert M. Drake, “If I lived a million lives, I would have felt a million feelings and still would’ve fallen a million times for you.” I think successful couples return to that line of thinking more often than not: “despite what’s going on right now, I would still choose you.” That, in some sense, was the heart of my cognitive dissonance. The day she left she told me she wouldn’t want to be doing this with anybody else. I believed it and felt the same way. The poet Adrienne Rich refers to love as going the hard way of constantly refining the truths we share with each other. Joni Mitchell suggests that endless variety comes when we choose to stay with someone after they’ve shown us what an asshole they can be (constantly moving on is only a way of falling in love with ourselves and our own stories). And just today I was reminded of a quote I enjoy from the poet Mary Oliver:
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
After the breakup when I exported the text thread, I sent it to my ex hoping she would see in it (especially in those first few months) what I saw in it: an abundance of joy, something that felt “better than all the riches or power in the world.” At that time, we had seen each other at our worst (ending an engagement and walking away was about as bad as it gets) and I (despite telling myself that I was being a stoic) still believed in and desperately wanted our redemption. Such a redemption, while almost always possible, requires two active participants, requires both people to make that choice. What I wasn’t hearing at the time was that a different choice, an irreversible choice, had been made… and it’s not so much that I wasn’t listening or hearing, but more that I had a different core view on life. I was coming to a point in my spirituality where I no longer believed in directionality or purpose. There is no inherent value assigned to forwards or backwards, there’s just movement. We can always go back, turn around, turn a different way, climb the same hill on a different path. It won’t be exactly the same, but then again nothing ever is (no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man). I had been coming around to the idea that by letting go and re-imagining the possible we have countless ways for mutual renewal. In this respect, despite my sometimes cantankerous and dour outlook on humanity as a whole, I might be considered an optimist.
So where does that leave me today? I go back to my past because some lessons need to be learned and re-learned. I go back because sometimes I can connect dots that weren’t obvious before. In this case, looking for our origin story reminded me of the power of origin stories. More importantly, it showed me that a typo can be a mantra for remembering to be silly, playful, and to embrace the accidental – or as Mary Oliver suggests, don’t hesitate when you sense joy. I think she and I would have done well to remember how we started. What I can carry with me like a lucky coin I can rub when I need to be reminded that life is full of happy accidents and chance encounters is that in this world of endless possibilities, pheasants may be goats.