one of the paradoxes of meeting people is that you can't really tell what someone's like until you meet them, or at least until you get to know them. basically all of the people in my life are there because of random events; i didn't say i want this, this, and this in a person and then find that person. and if you told me someone had all of the characteristics that one of my close friends had, and i met them, there's still a pretty good chance i wouldn't like them.

for most of the important people in my life, it's extremely east to construct an almost identical alternate future where i never meet them. adrienne, for instance, i only substantively met because she happened to stroll past the sps table and i happened to be tabling, both of which are pretty random events (well at least the last; that was the only year i tabled for sps, i think? maybe there was another one.) i would never have talked to danielle again if i hadn't randomly run into her at just the right time towards the end of my senior year of high school (we were 10 or so days away from us never talking again being a near certainty), and now we've been friends for 10 years.

when you add to that the fact that these people (and others like them) aren't at all stereotypical (which is part of why i love them so), it seems awfully idiosyncractic that my friends are just so. that my life could have very easily turned out with my confidants, my sounding boards, my barometers for friends and love and life, very different. in the future, i presumably meet someone and get married; that is going to be a largely random event.

indeed, the most substantive meeting-a-new-person i've had in the past six months took place in the strangest of circumstances, a rather odd gathering where we were the only two normal people and naturally bonded. the fact that michelle (who has not responded to the googlebomb of a couple of entries ago) and i are not going to talk to each other again most likely (barring another random event) is not really relevant; the point is that there's just so much situational, and situations are inherently random. it's very easy for me to see how i could become best friends with someone if we got to know each other in a condusive situation and have an awkward first date with them if things just didn't click on that day.

of course, the counterargument to this, in my own life even, is the relationship with wendy. i basically decided that this was the girl i was interested in and this is the girl i was going to date. not that she didn't have any agency in it by any means, but the process was completely natural -- i saw her page on okcupid, we emailed for a while, then we met. we were predisposed to like each other because of the emails, and i think this (non-random) context was why we ended up together; it's very easy to give someone the benefit of the doubt when you already like them. i don't mean to say that the only reason i dated her was the virtual preconception -- she is a wonderful girl and will make someone very happy -- but the fact is that the decision-making process involved in the start of our relationship was a very continuous one, and consisted of the emails as much as it consisted of what happened when we actually saw each other. i'm not exactly sure how the horribly messy end to the relationship (entirely my fault, as i've alluded to) fits into that. but it's my life, not a movie; it doesn't have to all fit together.

bedtime.

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