haha, bear with me
cosmic coincidences and circuitous patterns
I throw my belief behind astrology when I’m crushing, Jesus when I’m flying, the moon when I’m crying, and science when I start my period and ruin new underwear.
These convictions serve me in times of distress, but the one thing that never wavers is my faith in circuitous patterns. What comes around always comes back around. And although I’m undevoted to a deity or an organized religion, I worship at the altar of serendipity.
Serendipity the noun, not the 2001 film with Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack. Although, my second altar is a shrine to romantic comedies. These two credences are how I tend to wind up in situations that surprise none but still are unbelievable.
My past relationships have a thread to what I can only surmise as cosmic. If you are a skeptic (all my exes), you’d sum it up to correlation and refuse to see the divine mystique of why it was written in the stars for us to be together. But if you are me and a student of Jane Austen and Nancy Meyers and Rob Reiner, kismet is king.
“Wait, I think I know this dude,” I said to Macey as she finished her summer puzzle, and I looked at a new connection on Raya.
I don’t know much about Raya, or how their algorithm works, or honestly how I’m on it, but if you’re unfamiliar, the app gatekeeps people who live in your actual city and shows you attractive people and sometimes celebrities in New York, and Stockholm, and Miami. This is not a place to find love or conversation but explicitly a place to boost serotonin by knowing John Mayer finds you hot.
There also seems to be an unwritten rule to never message your connections but instead close out of the app with the knowledge that for 30 seconds, you were lust on a stranger’s screen.
I continued to scroll through my connection’s carefully curated photos when I saw him in a cycling costume.
I know you’re thinking, “uniform,” but all men are clowns, which makes them performers, therefor all outfits they wear costumes.
As I scrolled to the next photo of him in glasses, a lightbulb flashed. I definitely knew this dude.
Flashback to 2017: I’m working customer experience at Warby Parker. Out of the thousands of phone calls I took over my three-year tenure, I remember four. One with a woman who owned a coat that belonged to Sir Paul McCartney. Second, with an author I loved. Third, with an actor who was in Scream and Scooby Doo. And fourth, with a guy whose glasses broke while cycling across the country.
We talked about his broken glasses for about five minutes and then talked for about another hour. After we begrudgingly ended the call, I quickly found him on Instagram. My finger hovered over the follow button, but I was scared of HIPAA.
And also scared of my perceived reality. How did I develop a crush on a stranger’s voice? I went into the work bathroom and stared at my reflection for a few minutes. I’m a little obsessed with people’s perceptions of me. Sometimes I feel as if I’m floating away, but if I can find a mirror, I can bring myself back to earth. It’s not that my beauty is a balm, but rather seeing my average-looking face grounds me.
After receiving his glasses, he sent a cute email thanking me, attached with a very hot photo of him wearing the new frames.
Not to get too inside baseball, but customer experience emails all went to one big inbox that anyone could respond to, and someone else responded to his very hot photo and sweet message that I could have sworn was oozing feelings, with a curtly pre-written response that carried none of the emotion lingering in my stomach and heart.
To respond again felt desperate and like I would be exposing the company’s secrets. So I daydreamed of him for a few days and then started hooking up with someone I worked with, which is a different story in the cosmos full of coincidences.
Flashback to August 2023: “I’m gonna message him and ask if he ever called Warby Parker.”
“That’s so weird. Absolutely do not do that,” Macey said, not even looking up from the puzzle. She is also a skeptic.
“People don’t message back on this thing, I literally have nothing to lose,” I said as I typed, “This is gonna sound so insane, haha, bear with me, but did you ever call Warby Parker customer service?” I hit send.
Hours later, consumed with cringe, thinking of the nearest building I could jump off, a message from the connection came in.
“No fucking way. Yes. I distinctly remember that being a very fun phone call.”
My face flushed, and a smile passed, and my brain began tracing the complexities of the universe.
“Full disclosure I remember that convo cause I had a crush on you based on your energy,” a second message from the connection read.
The universe at work on the second to last Thursday in August. I quickly found a mirror to make sure I was still on this astral plane.
We began texting casually, and then all-consuming, and then full of sexual tension.
“Have you ever read “The Alchemist?” he asked.
If anyone asks if you’ve read “The Alchemist”, run. I promise you, it’s not going to end well. Even when he asked, a red flag waved in front of my face, but I thought, “maybe this reader is different. Maybe I should “The Alchemist”.
“As a spiritual framework, I think if you’re pursuing the path you *want* then signs or gifts will present themselves to you,” he texted.
I was pursuing passion and the sign was texting me about Paulo Kow-eh-low.
“His favorite book is “The Alchemist”, I said to my mother.
“Oh, so he wants to fuck you,” she said in between sips of Champagne.
Almost as if he heard her, he texted, “Have you ever seen “Tampopo”? There’s a really hot and weird scene where the man and woman take turns spitting an egg yolk into each other's mouth until it bursts.”
“Well now we have something to do if our paths ever cross!” I texted back.
“We should cross paths,” he said.
When we Facetimed on the last Monday of August, I surprised myself by wanting to kiss the screen. It’s hard to explain the type of chemistry that was felt through ethers and networks and technology I don’t understand, but it felt like a gift I didn’t deserve while also a clear reward for the heartache I’d been through the past year, a different story in the cosmos full of coincidences.
“Your eye contact is piercing my soul,” I said through a wide grin.
“Come to Austin,” he said.
We were on the phone talking late into the night. I have trouble sleeping, but I think it’s less about sleep and more about crushing because I tend to sleep just fine when I don’t have a crush. I stopped dating and texting boys for three months this spring; I’d never been so well-rested.
“Let’s sleep on it,” I said, even though I had already looked up tickets. Even though I knew it was written in the stars.
I woke up to a text the next morning, “I’ve slept on it. Come to Austin.”
Recently, my boss/mentor said, “Sometimes I think you get into these situations for the story,” and I defensively said, “I don’t think I do, actually.”
That night, I agreed to watch my ex-situationship’s dog for a week while he visited his ex.
But the situations do indeed find me. I mean, I’m sorry, but in what world do you connect with someone on a dating app after talking to them on a customer service phone call six years prior when yall both felt the same chemistry? I mean, that is insane! That is unheard of. That is clearly the universe calling, and by habit, I’m answering with “Hi, Warby Parker!”.
“What kind of car do you drive?” I texted when I landed in a city I’d only been to once before.
“Silver Lexus SUV,” he texted.
“just married has been written on the back,” I began to type as another text came in, “It says just married on the back.”
I took out my phone to look at myself in the camera.
No wonder I believe love exists when there are cosmic coincidences like this.
No wonder I will do anything for love when it all feels like a promise.
No wonder I am always surprised when it ends.
I could tell you how I ran into his arms at baggage claim.
I could tell you how he made me ramen, and we recreated the egg yolk scene from “Tampopo.”
I could tell you how the last thing he said before we fell asleep was, “I’ve never felt like this before,” and it was the first time I had a good night’s sleep in months.
I could tell you how I was still naked in his bed with his hand on my inner thigh when we woke up, and he told me this wasn’t what he thought it would be and asked me to leave.
I could tell you how I didn’t get to use his bathroom before I left, and when my Uber driver dropped me off at a nearby coffee shop, the bathroom was closed for repairs, so I didn’t have a chance to check my reflection in the mirror to see what he saw, what ugliness my face must portray that changed his mind, what reality I was living in since this was no longer the universe I knew and loved.
I could tell you how I texted the only person I knew in Austin, a guy I dated the previous December. I could tell you I texted him, “hi I’m stranded in Austin. Are you able to be a friend to me right now?” and how he texted, “no” and then 10 minutes later, “I have covid” followed by, “and a girlfriend.”
I could tell you how, when I got home, I still couldn’t quite perceive what I saw in my bathroom mirror. Couldn’t tell you who I was. My circuitous spirit had been broken, and what did I have without my faith?
I could tell you all that, but it’s pretty sad, and I’d hate to be a bummer.
What I will tell you is that a week later, I told all of that to my mom’s best friend on our back porch, “I just don’t know why the universe betrayed me like this,” I said to her through jagged sobs while I ate leftover birthday cake.
Oh, had I not mentioned that this all happened over my birthday? Oh, yes. I am God’s favorite clown. Everything I wear is a costume, too.
“Why are you just thinking about your universe, baby girl?” she asked as she took a hit of her vape. “If anything, this is just a reminder that the universe is indeed real. It just wasn’t about you this time. You were serving plot for his narrative, your presence an answer to his questionable path.”
“So you don’t think it was stupid I went? Everyone thinks it’s really stupid I went.”
My favorite cake tasted like pennies going down my throat, but I kept eating it. “Everyone thinks I’m stupid!” I sobbed. And then the truth came out as it always does. I feared being perceived as stupid, and a mirror couldn’t tell me I wasn’t.
“I don’t think you’re stupid at all. Doing things for love is never stupid. I’ve done some pretty stupid things. But never for love.”
That night, I matched with a guy on Raya who lived in Atlanta, which is a different story in the cosmos full of coincidences, but let’s just say I’ve watched his dog before.
I’ll always go about love the wrong way because there is no right way.
My faith has never been stronger.
What I’ve been enjoying while I wait for the melancholy of summer to end:
Summer House
Umm… obsessed with this
I love this! You had me at “the altar of serendipity”.