It’s that time of year again. The time of year when we celebrate love in all its forms: romantic, familial, parental, friendly, platonic, and even pet-centric.
Valentine’s Day.
I’ve written about love and Valentine’s Day in different ways over the years. I definitely got a lot out of my system on the subject last year. Left it all on the floor, as they say. I’m not sure I’ll ever top that one.
This year, I’m thinking about romantic love in a more metaphysical way. How we choose our romantic partners in the first place. What motivates us to move in their direction instead of in another direction. How the smallest decision we make–a single decision–can change our lives forever.
Asking an attractive stranger what time our train stops in Milan.
Clicking “Yes” instead of “No” on the defunct Facebook app called “Are You Interested.”
Deciding to take an uncharacteristic leap by posting a blog entry about relationships and monogamy on social media instead of keeping it to myself.
A mental impulse that impels a finger swipe in a certain direction on a Tinder profile.
Small decisions. Life-changing decisions.
We don’t always know why we make them. They’re not always intentional. At least mine aren’t. Sometimes they involve very little thought and are more of a physical reaction to an impulse or a feeling. Maybe a voice inside of me that I can’t identify or perceive in the moment.
I just do it, and it always feels like jumping into a pool of freezing cold water.
Most of the time, the vast majority of the time, these small decisions lead to nothing of consequence. They’re just another blip in our day that changed nothing about our lives. But sometimes, .000005% of the time, they lead to something monumental that dictates the next few months, years, or maybe even the rest of our lives.
When I think back to all of the significant romantic relationships I’ve had in my life, most of their beginnings can be traced back to a single, small choice I made. A tiny, seemingly trivial decision. To text rather than to not text. To say “yes” instead of “no”. To take a risk and be open to possibility instead of keeping my door closed.
Whenever I’m on the cusp of making this kind of decision, those times when I’m not just reacting but being intentional or at least self-aware about them, it feels portentous. I can feel it in my bones. It feels like I’m about to choose my own adventure from a universe of potential options. As if whichever path I choose to take is going to take me out of one multiverse and drop me in another. Before I make this choice–whether it’s to swipe right or left on someone, to decide to pursue an exclusive relationship with someone, or to end a marriage, I’m in a “superposition” of potential futures. I am located in multiple potential multiverses at the same time. And based on a single decision that I’m about to make, I will be choosing between an infinite number of potential future realities with an infinite number of potential outcomes.
This crossroads, this vantage point above it all, right before I decide on a direction in the reality that I’m perceiving with my five senses, is a form of quantum superposition, where I’m in more than one reality at the same time. After I make this choice, I will create a fork in my future potential realities, limiting them to those that exist based on the decision I just made. Of course, I won’t notice this shift with my eyes. It will be imperceptible to me. And then, until I make a new decision, I’ll be on a single multiverse track.
I swear I’m not high right now.
I guess every decision we make involves this type of multiverse reality branching, but the big ones, like when we decide we want to pursue one person and devote ourselves exclusively to them while forsaking other people, other options, and other potential futures–literally an infinite number of them–don’t get enough attention. Given that we all have only a limited amount of time in this life, and we don’t know how much we have left to live, the decision to devote the most precious treasure and resource we have in life–our time–to one person is a big fucking deal. I don’t think most of us realize how big a deal it is to do this, at least until you start getting some white in your beard like me. That’s when you begin to understand this quite well.
Of course we can’t see the impact of our daily decisions or romantic decisions, the track-shifting that occurs when we make these choices, because we’ll never see where those other paths may have led. But when you think about it, it IS happening. Every time we choose someone for a romantic relationship, every time we make a conscious choice to pursue that person exclusively instead of other people, to devote our time and life only to them, we create a metaphysical fork in the road for ourselves. We branch off from other potential realities that we’ll never experience in this one. We turn away from those unknown future people we’ll never meet and share our time, life, and love with if we had made a different choice. Conversely, if we don’t make the choice to be with the person we just chose, we’ll never experience what we’re about to experience with them.
This may be the most convoluted post I’ve ever written.
When you’re in a superposition, it can make you anxious because you’re in more than one reality at the same time. Our bodies are these massive spiritual antennas, and they can literally feel the metaphysical weight of being in two, three, or a million realities at once and trying to deciding which fork in the road we should take. Does it get any more metaphysically anxious than having to choose from an infinite number of realities? There’s no therapist for this.
Superposition is a crossroads in the multiverse, and I feel like I’m in one now. Much of this blog–especially when I talk about love and relationships–is an exercise in 20/20 hindsight criticism of myself and my past decisions about people. Now that I’m finding myself in another one of these decisive moments about someone new and am fully aware of the significance of these decisions, I have to say I’ve been way too hard on myself. Any asshole can look backwards and say ‘You should have done this’ or ‘You should have done that’. That’s easy. My goal has always been to learn from the past so I can make better future decisions for myself. I think I’ve been doing that. But the thing about love and relationships is you’re never going to know everything about yourself or the other person right away. Not everything is going to be instantly clear. Yes, I can minimize future pain and wasted time by seeking alignment with my core values, setting boundaries, and by not being afraid to be alone. Those have been effective weed whackers that have saved me a lot time and energy in the past few years.
But I’m not clairvoyant. I can’t see everything that’s about to happen. I can’t know what the best choice is before I make it and live out the future that it’s based on. I now find myself at another crossroads where I’m seriously compelled by someone for the first time in a very long time. Compelled while also recognizing major obstacles of distance, living apart most of the time for a long time if things actually work out, and trying to get to know someone through a telephone while living separate daily lives in a geographic reality where it will take great effort to be in the same place at the same time, at least for now.
What does one do in this superposition, this crossroads in the multiverse in which I now find myself? I’ve been here before, and it’s never worked, so my future hindsight blog posts will certainly know what I should have done now. The guy who writes them will point me to all these unconscious factors that were operating in my head, which drove me in a certain direction. If I had done X or Y, surely things would have gone better, or more optimally.
But fuck that know-it-all asshole. Without the benefit of his perfect hindsight, I have to fall back on my intuition, feelings, and on what I once said about the decisions I’ve made in my life that have made me grow and evolve the most, for better or worse. Almost without exception, those decisions were based on love, hope, and possibility, not fear. They involved taking a leap of faith. Buying a lottery ticket. Getting in line for another ride on Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love. Many of those decisions blew up in my face and caused me emotional and financial pain. But not all of them. Some of them were quite joyous indeed, at least for moments. One of them gave me my daughter, the greatest gift in my life. None of these decisions were reckless. They were all based on something real and concrete. Even the ones that led to suffering helped me grow and evolve and taught me many things about myself, about life, about love.
Finding myself at a new crossroads, one that may bring incredible things or nothing, great joy or great pain, or something in between, I have to honor this. I have to honor what got me here by continuing to live my life in the same fearless, love-driven way I’ve lived it before, not turning away from my past by choosing the easier, cautious, fear-driven and far less second-guessable path forevermore.
Which is why I’m going to Brazil in April.
