The Lovers' Parable

“I do.”

That’s what I said many years before I met the man of my dreams. The man in front of me as I said it wasn’t even smiling; to be fair, neither was I. Both of us were just desperate to get the whole ceremony over with so we could go back to being ourselves: the people we had dated and fallen in love with over the past five years. We weren’t suited to suits and gowns – still aren’t – let alone suited to upholding the expectations of every person in an overcrowded room. Though it felt interminable, eventually the day and night did indeed end, though not without its share of tears both happy and sad.

The same description could be said of the first few years of our marriage. “Rocky” would be an understatement, no matter whether you’re thinking of sucking back raw eggs and hoofing it up and down stairs or whether your brain went to an Atlantic beach. We were broke kids, and universal healthcare still doesn’t cover therapy no matter what country you’re in, so we improvised. Every YouTube video, every prayer, every bootleg self-help pdf that Google could give us, we tried. Some of it worked, some of it didn’t, but we kept trucking – him holding me through my panic attacks and me smiling through his life choices. Did we make mistakes? Absolutely – more than I can count. Did we ever accept defeat? No, never accepted. Tempted by defeat, yes, but never accepted. We’re both too stubborn for defeat to have ever been a real possibility in those early days.

Now you may be used to today’s economy, but yesteryear’s wasn’t so hot either, which meant travel for opportunities beat out any reproductive calls in our lives. It was three countries later that I met him – the man of my dreams, I mean. Once, back in high school, I had reacted to just seeing another human being like that. I don’t know if it qualified as love at first sight at either point in my history, but it sure counted as something, and this time around, I didn’t have the teenage hormones to blame it on. It was as if every cell in my body fired simultaneously the second I laid eyes on him; the attraction was immediate and atomic. He was an objectively handsome guy, to be sure, but … this was special. He owned every weakness I had – tall and strong without being bulky, a perfect set of jade eyes, and long, thick dark hair like was in fashion at the time. The worst was the smile, though. I’ve never been able to resist a wolfish grin at the best of times, and his was the easiest I had ever seen. Still is. I always understood “chemistry” to be a two-way thing between people, but regardless of his experience at the time, I was a hopeless case. It was as if Satan himself had gone into my head, torn out whatever version of a rib he had access to, and formed my every fantasy into a human man.

There was nothing satanic about this guy, though. He was sweet – is sweet – desperately charming and though he’d never admit it, kind to a fault. When he was around, everyone was included, and somehow you still felt like you were the only one in the room with him. I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, naturally; he was regularly swarmed with interest from every gender under the sun, but still always made time for me. Me – the least interesting person in the room. So many nights of laughing ‘til I cried and inside jokes and long walks home alone in the darkness, tears in my eyes knowing not every night could be that way.

~*~

“But nothing ever happened? Like, between you I mean?”

I took a deep draft of my tea, my student’s eyes a mix of hope and confusion in front of me. This was the crux of the matter, after all – the whole point of the story. She wanted to justify holding off a commitment in case something better came along. They all did. How could you stick to one person when there could be someone out there who was made exactly for you – a soulmate you just hadn’t come across yet? The question hit me a bit like ye olde “who’s your neighbour” question from that Pharisee way back when. I sighed, smiling.

“Between us? Just a deep and lasting friendship.”

That really threw her; I could tell because she put down her frappé with a bit too much gusto, a glob flying out of her metal straw onto the café table. Cheating, she could accept – she was a romance reader. Being star-crossed lovers, she could accept – we were sitting in a different country than the one I was talking about in my story. Friendship? That was straight out of left field. I took the opportunity to guzzle down some more tea. My voice was starting to go after our lengthy chat, and I had splurged on the good tea for this meeting.

“So you were attracted to him.”

“Still am.”

“More than anyone else you had ever met before.”

“Yep.”

“And you’re still friends?”

“Excellent ones.”

“But … weren’t you in love with him?”

The conversation always got to this point, and no matter how many times it did, I had to pause and reflect on the question. She wasn’t the first person to ask, nor would she be the last, and emotions are fundamentally irrational things. Words, on the other hand, are less so – words are designed to communicate ideas, to transfer thoughts from one human to another, and therefore they need a logic that emotion itself lacks. Still, I thought this one could get it with a bit of guidance.

“What elements of ‘in love’ are you referring to?”

Again, she paused – yet another unexpected turn. One would think my PhD was in plot twists the way this conversation was going.

“Let me clarify,” I continued. “Do you mean the emotion, the choice, or the commitment?”

This hadn’t helped her figure it out, so as usual, I answered my own question.

“If you’re asking me if I felt love for him, then yes, I did and do. Do I choose to love him? Well, that depends – I don’t love him in the way my body wants to, but I do love who he is and choose to act in a loving and respectful way toward him. And for commitment … well I have committed to an eternal platonic love, and I suppose time will tell if that is one-sided or not.”

“What about him? Does he love you?”

“He tells me so every time I see him, so I hope so!” I laughed in reply. “I don’t think he ever felt the … electricity that I did, though, which is probably what you were asking.”

“You never asked him how felt about you?”

“And if I had? He was respectful enough of me not say, and it’s not my job to ask.”

Another unforeseen question – another surprise.

“So you just … don’t know? You met your soulmate and just kept walking?”

“I never said he was my soulmate.”

“But you said he was the man you were most attracted to, that you love him, that you spent time together …”

“All true, but it doesn’t a soulmate make. You’ve forgotten the beginning of the story already.”

We both took the opportunity to sip our drinks. It was getting close to evening, and the café would be closing in the hour as the student population transferred themselves to the local libraries. Thankfully the story was coming to a close as well.

“Remember in my creative writing class? In short stories and novellas, we often invert the existing tropes of our genres. Let me put it this way – in the three-act structure, who are the characters that must be introduced in the first act?”

“The protagonist and the antagonist.”

“Correct. You’ve been listening to the story under the false assumption that I’m the protagonist. Now, who’s the other character I introduced at the very beginning?”

This took her a minute. As a top student, she wouldn’t let the question go unanswered, but also wouldn’t risk a mistake. Then, her eyes lit up.

“Your husband.”

My smile deepened.

“Correct. I’m talking in the first person, so I can see why you’d miss it, but it is him that drives the action of the story. I’m a deuteragonist at best. He was working the whole time too, supporting a wife that he was so happy to see had such good friends, hosting those friends for events at their own apartment, putting in the effort to take care of his wife and the people who love her as much as he does.”

I let that one sink in before continuing.

“You wanted to know how someone could choose a person when they hadn’t met everyone yet and you might fall in love with someone else later. Honestly, you probably will – but so will the person you chose. The key is building a relationship instead of finding a soulmate, even if you have to build it with bootleg pdfs and questionable YouTube videos.”

We were the last two left in the café, and our drinks were nearing the same lukewarm temperature. I couldn’t tell if my story had comforted or confused my student, but I was happy to have been able to share it.

“So,” she finished quietly, “you still love your husband more?”

Smiling, I gently replied, “I do.”