I went to a lovely wedding last night. There's something about weddings of people over a certain age and stage in life, whether each person in the union has been married before or not, that makes me really happy. Don't get me wrong, I am happy for every couple no matter their age, and wish them well in life. But there's something great to me about a love forged in the fires of middle age, because most people in this age bracket are no longer young, lithe, and at the top of their game of life. They come to each other with eyes open as to the challenges life can bring and the ones that are left to come in the latter half of life, if they are lucky enough to have that half. It's like saying to someone, "Here's me with all my ugly, all my baggage. If you choose me now, I believe it and choose you back under the same circumstances."
It made me think of times when I was young and thought I believed in things like "kismet" or serendipity somehow pointing the direction for a close encounter or longer relationship, and how it always got me into a bad situation; sometimes even a dangerous one.
Sometimes these instances were brief but terrible, like the time I went home with someone I worked with who had a superhero tattoo and and a line about protecting me (it was a security guard job, so the protection aspect was real) and somehow thought these things made him a good guy deep down inside and it was "fate" that we worked together that day. Instead, the evening devolved into his hours-long shouting and ranting violent, homophobic rhetoric and screaming at me that I was going to Hell, not only because of my close friendships with gay people but because of my personal history of relationships that crossed all over the LGBTQ+ spectrum. What started out with him making me dinner and slow dancing in his living room to the Moondance album became a nightmare I thought would never end. He told me how he and his friends would get dressed up and go to bars where gay men were known to hang out and wait for someone to hit on them and then they would take the guy in the alley and beat him within an inch of his life.
He wouldn't allow me to leave, physically barring me from leaving the room and continuing to shout Bible verses at me and to tell me all the horrible things that were going to happen to me if I didn't stop living my life the way I was living it. At first I argued with him, then he screamed me into submission and I waited for hours until he got enough vitriol out that he would let me leave, at around 4 in the morning. It was awful and I had to report to work the next morning for an all-day event, but I hadn't slept and was crying a lot and was a wreck.
My boss called me into his office as soon as I arrived and knew something bad had happened. He first made sure I was 100% ok physically and then corralled some other security guards and let's just say that when Tattoo showed up to work, he was ... escorted out, unkindly, and would never return.
Years later, I had to learn this lesson in a bigger and much more difficult way, when I met the person I ended up moving to California for and becoming engaged to. The day we met seemed like fate in so many ways, but the day I moved out there I knew I had made a grave error, and it took me over a year to extract myself from it, stealthily, for my safety.
My advice to lovers today is to not look for fate. Don't let movies or books shape what you think is supposed to happen, don't let fables and wide eyes of innocence guide your choices. It's better to be alone than in a bad relationship, even when being alone is hard. Get a pet if you yearn for a companion - so many are looking for a loving home right this instant. Join a group or find a hobby if you're looking for activities with others outside of the home. But if you meet someone who shares some of your interests and you're both looking for love, it doesn't mean that it's fate. You don't need to follow it home that night or to California a few months later, or anywhere else that doesn't feel right in your gut.
Real love doesn't disappear when you blink.