-Guessing Who and Gaining Something New

Can you remember that game we use to play when we were younger? It was called “Guess Who” and the point was to figure out what card the other person had. So you would ask yes and no questions to try and eliminate the incorrect options. Does she have blonde hair? Does he have brown eyes? Is she wearing a hat? Does he have glasses? Eventually it would be narrowed down to just one, and you knew it was the one. You knew you had found the one and the game was over. Sadly dating and relationships are nothing like that, because even if you think you have found the one you can still end up losing.
I don’t like to equate dating or relationships to a game because then it sounds like there should be a winner or a loser. I make metaphors for dating all the time, but I don’t think there should ever be a sense of someone losing and someone winning. If it is a real relationship then both people involved are winning when things are good and losing when things are bad. The two of you go through the highs and the lows side by side. There might not be winning and losing but there is definitely gaining and missing. You gain knowledge about how to be a better person, how to be more responsible, how to manage time, how to grow up and grow with someone, how to communicate and how to trust. You miss things like the naivety of being a child, the relaxation of a simpler schedule, the part of you that never cared about Friday nights and sometimes you miss what is going on around you. The gaining and the missing, that is all apart of relationships; those things are built into what it means to have a lasting and meaningful romance. Those are accounted for, what isn’t expected is the surprises and the guessing. The Frisbee to the head, which is what you should really be looking out for. You can think that it is just another sunny day, but you have to remember that even sunny days have their problems and unexpected occurrences. Like Frisbees.
Before you can even get to the sunny days you have to start by finding someone. This involves a lot of guessing. Does he like me like me, or just like me? Is she really that bubbly or is she just nervous around me? Is he winking at me or is his contact dry? Are those really hers? You have to tread carefully here because one misstep and there is no recovery, sometimes you just have to move on. The thing that gets me though, is having to move on from a relationship when there was no misstep, when neither person did something wrong. How do we move on from that? When a relationship ends and there is no real reason, you are left with nothing but guessing. Guessing if a word meant more then it should have. Guessing if you should have smiled then and nodded there. Guessing if there was someone else or someone better? Guessing if you will ever get to see them again? If the last kiss was memorable? Not all of these questions are yes or no answers, but it doesn’t matter because you never get them answered. So there you are, playing “Guess Who” all by yourself trying to figure out why you are left alone when you are sure you had guessed the right one; so sure you had found the one.
There is no guessing when it comes to always being able to learn a lesson from a relationship, even if it had an unwarranted end. You are bound to walk away with some new knowledge. Whether you want to or not, you have undergone a learning experience. Is there any point in guessing if it could have gone on longer, or if you could have done something different? I guess I don’t know. But while I figure it all out I plan on playing some board games and asking some simpler questions. Anyone up for some Catchphrase?