791: Math or Magic?
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Prologue: Prologue
Tobin Low
From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Tobin Low, sitting in for Ira Glass.
There's a story in my family that I love. It's actually a story about love, and it's one that I both fully enjoy, and is also the source of many years of romantic frustration. It starts with my mom as a teenager growing up in San Francisco Chinatown. A woman at the church she went to comes up to her one day, and says--
Vivian Low
I have a nephew who's just perfect for you. And I'm going to set up this date, and you're just made for each other. You have to meet each other. And she was determined to make that happen.
Tobin Low
Maybe you can see where this is going. This is, in fact, my very own How I Met Your Father story. Anyway, my parents were both invited to a party where they could see each other for the first time.
Vivian Low
So there's a room full of people, and I don't know which one he's going to be. And so I'm sort of scanning the room, and I look at some people and think, oh, well, maybe that one has a really good personality.
Tobin Low
So you're saying there were some real uggos in the room.
Vivian Low
Well, they were just-- you know, they probably have a great personality.
[LAUGHTER]
And so when I finally got introduced to him, I just was so relieved that he was good-looking. He met my expectation of what I hoped it would be. It was like, this huge sigh of relief.
Tobin Low
My dad was 19 at the time. My mom, 18. Their first date was at a French restaurant. She liked his good looks and that he was kind. He liked how quietly assured she was. Afterwards, they went to the movies, saw The Graduate, watched Dustin Hoffman bust Katherine Ross out of that wedding chapel, her bouquet still in hand. By the end of the date, they knew they had something special.
But the part of the story that has stuck with me is this moment my mom talks about, a couple of months after that. My mom and dad ended up at the same college. And they'd spend every night together, hanging out at each other's dorm rooms. One night he walked her to the elevator, and he kissed her.
Vivian Low
We were saying goodbye at the elevator and had a hug and kiss. It was like, something magic about that moment was like, this is going to work.
Tobin Low
They were married within the year. And they just have one of those marriages. They've been happily together for 52 years. The part that gets me-- they both knew it was right.
As I grew up into an adult who dates, my dad was the one who said, don't worry, you'll figure it out. But my mom, on the other hand, she had more specific advice. Whenever I called about how a boyfriend and I had broken up or that dating was hard, her advice-- if you're with the right person, it should just feel like magic. If you don't feel magic, then it's time to bail.
Tobin Low
Can you tell me what you meant by magic, as best as you can describe it?
Vivian Low
You look at the person and you feel that, against all odds, you're always going to-- that's the one for you. And there's no way of defining what that will be, I think, until it happens. And if it never happens, then I'm just not sure that's the relationship, at least, that I would want for you.
Tobin Low
So the bar for magic is high.
Vivian Low
Yes. The bar for magic is very high.
Tobin Low
I wanted what my parents had, so I followed the advice. I'd go on dates-- dates that were perfectly fine, mind you. The conversation would be easy. The company, enjoyable. But at the end, I'd think, nope, didn't feel it. No magic.
Or I'd convince myself that I did feel the magic, and then think everything, even warning signs, were proof of that magic. Case in point-- for my 25th birthday, an ex-boyfriend of mine gave me a card. Inside was a couple of "buy 10, get one free" coupons he'd filled up from his work lunches. He was giving me his freebies. And I wish I was lying when I say that my response was, wow, he ate 10 Hale and Hearty soups, for me? Magic.
This is how most of my dating life as a 20-something went. But if my mom was on one shoulder telling me to look for magic, on the other shoulder was Elizabeth, one of my best friends.
When it came to dating, she adopted a very different attitude. Her thought was, you have to be practical. It's not about searching for a big feeling. It's more about data collection. Elizabeth was sometimes going out on three first-dates a week from OkCupid. It got to a point where, when we'd talk about the guy she had dates with, it was easier to nickname them as "OK," like I met them on OkCupid, plus adjective.
Elizabeth
So it was like, OKStandUp, because I think I went on a date with a standup, or like an aspiring standup. OKMedStudent. OKOccupyWallStreet. I don't know if you remember him.
Tobin Low
Oh my god, right. I remember that guy.
I do remember that guy. He kept pulling out his phone during their date to tweet about the movement.
Elizabeth
Let's see how many retweets we get for this, I remember him saying on our second date. And I was like, this isn't going to have a third. This is very strange.
Tobin Low
Elizabeth's advice for me went something like this. Dating is like being an anthropologist. You go on a bunch of dates. You notice the bits and pieces that maybe you liked from each guy, slowly sharpening the picture of what type of person you might have a successful relationship with. For her, going on a lot of bad dates was just part of the process.
Tobin Low
You're saying it's a numbers game.
Elizabeth
I'm saying it's a numbers game. I'm saying you have to, like-- you can't be disheartened by the fact that your numbers are going to look bad. You have to feel like, what have I got to lose.
[LAUGHTER]
A little bit less precious about every interaction.
Tobin Low
And her practicality-- it worked. Elizabeth eventually did meet someone. All that dating she did-- she says it allowed her to pay attention to all the small things she liked about him. They got married a couple of years ago. I officiated the wedding.
So why am I telling you all this? Because I feel like for anyone who has ever been single and wanted to find love-- and I'm talking about people that want lifelong partnership-- you have received advice from at least one of these two frustratingly opposed camps.
Camp one, the "look for magic" people, like my mom, and camp two, people like Elizabeth, who say it's more like math. Math is inexact, but I think you get my drift. They say use your head, not your heart. Be practical. Two warring factions, both with their champions, and a bunch of us in the middle, just trying to figure out which way is up. Who has it right? Will love find a way? Stay with us.
Act One: 10 Things I Require About You
Tobin Low
Act One, "10 Things I Require About You." So we're going to start off the show today with someone who is very much in the math camp, and who finds herself challenged by someone who could not disagree more. The math person-- her name is Zarna Garg. Her story starts when she was in her 20s. She was single, living in Cleveland, and the fact that she was single totally bothered her. This was in the late '90s, by the way.
Zarna Garg
You know, those years were the peak years of the TV show, Friends. Do you remember that show?
Tobin Low
Of course.
Zarna Garg
That show was the scariest show to me.
Tobin Low
Wait, why?
Zarna Garg
Because no one was ever getting married. They were dating, they were not dating, they were dating, they were on a break, they were off the break, then they were dating other people within the same friend group. Like, to somebody like me, who came from the world that I came from, that was a horror show.
Tobin Low
Zarna moved to the US on her own when she was 16, leaving behind her family in India and a likely arranged marriage. She wanted to be independent and to go to college. She got into law school in Cleveland, so she was very much on track.
But at the same time, she still had this idea in her head that marriage provided a solidness. It was something she wanted deeply. So she found an online dating site for Indian singles, and decided to post an ad for herself. Posting an ad to find a husband-- not so unique in the world Zarna's from. But what was unique was the fact that she was posting for herself.
The other ads were from aunts or moms trying to arrange matches for their daughters and nieces. Not Zarna. She was taking the reins. And her ad was, to put it lightly, specific. What she wrote was not a singles ad, so much as a list of qualifications. It was like a series of bullet points. She remembers it like this.
Zarna Garg
You have to be very serious. You have to have proof of your seriousness. I want to see what you do. I even would like to see some tax returns, and you know, what job prospects you have. I mean, it was nuts;
Tobin Low
She also said, you have to be brilliant. That was a big one because--
Zarna Garg
I figured, if I met somebody brilliant, life would be fine. And whatever problems would happen, we would work them out together, because he would be brilliant enough to figure that out.
[LAUGHTER]
Tobin Low
So brilliant, like booksmart?
Zarna Garg
Oh, so I was very specific about that. I was like, I need to see proof of your brilliance.
[LAUGHTER]
You know, I need to see where you went to college or whatever you're doing with your life. Oh, and also, I was like, you must have a good mother, because I don't have a mother, and this is my one chance to fix that.
Tobin Low
She also figured they should have accurate data about her. She said, I'm a student, I'm short, only 5 feet tall. I'm not the skinniest person.
Zarna Garg
I do think that my ad, as obnoxious as it was, had an element of honesty to it. An Indian ad would have been, fair and lovely, peaches-and-cream complexion, tall, skinny. I never used any of those words, because none of those words would have been true for me.
Tobin Low
You know, there might be somebody who hears your story and thinks, wow, that is kind of a ruthlessly practical way to go about finding a partner and finding love.
Zarna Garg
But they're right. They're right. It is a ruthlessly practical way, and it should be, because marriage is a contract. And like all contracts, you should think twice before getting into it. I don't believe that just falling blindly in love is the answer.
Tobin Low
Apparently, there were a lot of people who felt they met the criteria. Her inbox became flooded with messages, all from men who wanted to meet in person. Zarna picked a few of them, said sure, let's meet, but you have to come to Cleveland. And a surprising number said yes.
Zarna Garg
Men flew from all over different parts of America to come meet me in Cleveland. And I was actually pretty clinical about it, and as were they, mostly, once they realized what the vibe was. We met at a McDonald's in Cleveland that had, like, open windows. So it felt safe.
And they were all highly educated doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs. And for one reason or another, it wasn't working out. They liked me, I didn't like them, or whatever. Or I liked them, they didn't like me.
Tobin Low
What did she care? She had an inbox of hundreds of messages from other suitors who are just as qualified for the position of husband. What's that saying? I think it comes from Shakespeare, or maybe The Canterbury Tales. Thank you. Next.
It's in the middle of all these messages that she gets a different kind of message. And this person does not offer up his credentials or his tax returns. He simply writes--
Zarna Garg
This isn't a real ad. Is it? Are you a real person?
Tobin Low
The message goes on to make fun of her. It feels like a troll. And if this were a movie, the camera would zoom out of Zarna's window at her house in Cleveland. Maybe we would see a crude animation of a globe rotating on its axis. A dotted line moving from the US, going first to Europe, then zeroing in on Switzerland-- until the camera would zoom in on an office building in Zurich.
Because that's where the message came from-- a computer programmer working late one night at his office. His job was fixing a Y2K bug for his company. I know. So '90s. His name was Shalabh. He was single. And when he found Zarna's ad while randomly surfing the internet, he thought it was ridiculous. He called over his colleagues, and said, hey, get a load of this girl.
Shalabh
I mean, it was three of us that looked at it, because I called my friends in, and we were just making fun of it. We were like, I don't know who this girl is.
Tobin Low
What were the elements of it that you were making fun of in the ad?
Shalabh
I mean, the seriousness-- a girl who is this much work even before she has met someone, can you imagine what she would be like into a serious relationship? It's like, start to finish, work, work, work, and no fun.
Tobin Low
Cut back to Cleveland, small house in the suburbs. Zarna types back, "Yeah, I'm real." He replies--
Shalabh
You know, what makes you think that you'll find someone? I doubt anybody would take on that amount of seriousness at such a young age, because there's almost no fun in your classified.
Zarna Garg
I was like, yeah, and I'm actually on a mission to do something. What are you guys doing?
Shalabh
She was like, I don't know who is the bigger loser--
[LAUGHTER]
--someone who is seriously seeking out a life partner, like myself, or someone who is just sitting in a random room, programming and surfing young women on the internet.
Zarna Garg
He's like, so have you gotten any responses? I was like, as a matter of fact, many, many responses. You want to see some? And I forwarded him a whole bunch of ads, responses that I had.
And he was like, I can't believe this. And I said, why are you wasting my time? I was then getting irritated, because my ad clearly said, only contact me if you want to get married.
Tobin Low
Shalabh was not interested in getting married. His life was filled with travel and friends and skiing. Also, he lived an ocean away. He was not the solution to Zarna's problem. But they kept emailing. It was mostly them giving each other a hard time. This went on for weeks.
Zarna Garg
Then, he would then be like, hey, did you end up meeting that guy-- you know, the one you forwarded me? And I would be like, yeah, I met him, but I don't think it's going to work, and whatever. So we became friends, even despite my every intention to not make friends.
Tobin Low
Oh, so he was a little bit keeping tabs on your progress, too, then.
Zarna Garg
He was. I don't know why he was so curious, but he was.
Tobin Low
Oh, Zarna, I think we all know why he was so curious.
After so much back-and-forth, Shalabh had this feeling like, at this point, I can't not meet this girl.
Zarna Garg
Well, he said he really wanted to meet me. And I told him that I was moving to New York for my first job, and because I thought I would have a higher likelihood of meeting an Indian guy in New York than in Cleveland. And he was like, I really want to meet you. And I said, OK, I can meet you at the airport.
Tobin Low
Zarna says this is when I'm landing in New York from Cleveland. Shalabh says he can get a flight that arrives around the same time. Zarna says, OK, but I'm only willing to say a quick hi at the airport. She did not want to waste time on friend dates.
Zarna Garg
Because, as I said, I was mission-driven. The minute I reached New York, I had-- 2 o'clock, I was meeting this guy. 4 o'clock, I was meeting that guy. So there wasn't going to be a lot of time. And why was I meeting this guy from Switzerland anyway? Because there was no real interest there in that way. And he said, fine, I'll come to New York and we'll meet at the airport. It's fine. He said, I just need to see that you're real.
Tobin Low
They found each other at the airport. Zarna remembers thinking he was cute, but also, he immediately annoyed her.
Zarna Garg
He informed me at the airport that he had nowhere to go while in America. So now I'm like, now, you're stuck with me? I don't have a place to take you I barely had a tiny apartment for myself. And he's like, but I don't know. I'm here with my toothbrush and my passport. I have nowhere to go.
Tobin Low
Zarna says, fine, you can stay with me. She had made arrangements to stay at her cousin's apartment. He could crash. And then, in the cab on the way there, something about the anticipation of meeting face to face and then finally, seeing each other, something happened.
Shalabh
When we met, from that point on, all the way to the apartment we couldn't keep our hands off of each other. It was really passionate.
Tobin Low
They kissed. There was a spark. But they also both agreed there was nowhere for a relationship to go. Zarna was not going to let him get in the way. She kept her scheduled dates for that day. There were two of them. She dropped Shalabh off at the apartment and said, stay here, do not move, I have a husband to go meet.
And just like her routine in Cleveland, she arranged for them to meet in public places. First, in the lobby of the building she was staying at, then on to a coffee shop. What she had not planned on was that Shalabh would not stay at home like he promised. Instead, he crashed both of her dates, would just conveniently show up in the lobby or at the coffee shop.
Zarna Garg
He would just be like, hi, I'm Shalabh, with no explanation. That made it even more suspicious.
Tobin Low
Oh, he introduced himself to your dates.
Zarna Garg
Yeah. And my dates were like, is this your brother? I'm like, no. But it was hard to explain to them what exactly was the relationship. So I would be like, no, no, he's just a friend. He's visiting. But, clearly, it looked odd.
Tobin Low
Was your intent, you think, to throw off the date a little bit?
Shalabh
A little bit to throw off the date, but remember, I was early 20s. Even though I had not much to show for it, I was fairly arrogant myself. Because at least in my mind, I was one of the top colleges in India, I was doing a job in Zurich, making good money. So I was certainly not insecure. If anything, on the other side of it, in terms of being more arrogant.
Tobin Low
I see. But there was an energy of, like, let me see who this guy is.
Shalabh
Yeah, let me see who this guy is, and what is so special about a doctor guy.
Tobin Low
Zarna could have been annoyed by all this. But she found, somehow, she wasn't.
Zarna Garg
By then, I had a friendship enough with him that even when I was on a date I was thinking about him. Like, I wonder what he's doing. So my brain was already all over the place about what exactly are we doing here.
Tobin Low
Zarna ended up spending a couple of days with Shalabh. They walked around the city, talked about their lives, debated about politics and how they felt about America, shared how they both grew up in India, how they had both left home.
Zarna Garg
He had his own loneliness. He had his own really difficult journey. He is an ambitious guy. I think something about my ad and my world made him feel like, oh, my god, this sounds like my world. You know? And something about dealing with him made me feel like he's not so dissimilar from me and how I think.
Tobin Low
They both remember a turning point in that first visit, which brings us to the classic part of stories like this-- when it starts to rain.
Shalabh
Titanic had just come out. I remember we went for that movie in the rain. She used to love getting wet in light rain, but refused to carry an umbrella. You know how New York rain is, right? It was pouring rain.
And we'd just finish a 3-and-1/2-hour-long movie, where Jack was dead and Rose was going to go on with her life. And I'm like, that was probably the moment. And I'm thinking to myself, that is how fickle life can be, and do I really want to not have this woman in my life? Probably, that would be the one moment when I thought that this might be the woman for me.
Zarna Garg
And then, of course as everything we do ends up in a fight, we fought about it, too. Because there was space on that raft. He could have been saved. So then we started fighting about that and whether she should have thrown the necklace into the water or not.
Tobin Low
It sounds like you kind of even enjoyed disagreeing with him.
Zarna Garg
Oh, my god. To this day, my favorite thing to do is to fight with my husband.
Tobin Low
If you haven't caught on by now, I suppose that's a spoiler. Within a couple of months of that visit, Shalabh bought Zarna an emerald-green ring. They were married a little over a year after he sent her the message that made her so mad. They've been together now for 24 years.
Zarna Garg
If I can do anything, I want to go on a long walk and have a robust fight with him about everything-- about the politics, the movies-- yes, of course. Absolutely.
Tobin Low
Yeah. What is it about the fighting that you enjoy?
Zarna Garg
He's really brilliant. That's the one thing I got right.
Tobin Low
Zarna admits that, yes, some magic snuck into her life. But she sees this whole story largely as a victory for math. She wrote down exactly what she wanted, and she got it. Shalabh actually does match a bunch of the things on the list. For example, he has a good mother, and Zarna really loves her.
Shalabh, though-- sees the story totally differently. He thinks the fact that they met through this bizarre set of circumstances, it's an argument for magic. Which is funny, I'm used to couples disagreeing about why they broke up-- who said what, and who's to blame. But I've never known a couple who disagrees about the thing that brought them together.
And this disagreement over math versus magic, practicality versus romance-- it's continued into everything about their lives. Zarna still considers herself the pragmatic one in the family, Shalabh more of the dreamer. And now that they're parents, it means they're giving their kids competing advice.
Zarna Garg
He will tell my kids, oh, you should go fall in love. No, don't fall in love. This is what has caused all the problems in the world-- everybody falling in love. So, yes, he is the romantic, and it's like, I can't stop it. And I have to work around it with my kids, and remind them that their dad is wrong, entirely wrong. And our life is proof that I'm right.
Shalabh
Well, and I could also say our life is proof that my romanticism has provided me with a very great career, a great family, good health, kids that are healthy. So what's wrong with that?
Zarna Garg
I mean, you see why he's a problem? What's wrong with that is actually, my deep thinking and planning is what made all of that happen. It's not your romantic thinking. Am I right, Tobin?
[LAUGHTER]
Tobin Low
I mean--
Shalabh
I don't think he can take sides like that.
Tobin Low
I am scared to take sides here.
Zarna Garg
If Ira was here, he would agree with me.
Tobin Low
I don't know that I can authoritatively say who has it right here. But watching them each dig in their heels on their own point of view, it seems like together they balance each other out. And I imagine they force each other to see the world a little differently. Or, if not, at least they can argue about it.
Coming up-- a case for magic from the luckiest and maybe most unrelatable among us-- those jerks-- sorry, people-- who fell in love at first sight. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
Act Two: Crazy Stupid Love
Tobin Low
It's This American Life. I'm Tobin Low today's show, "Math or Magic," stories of people finding love by trusting some mystical force in the universe or just being practical about it. And as we were putting together this show, every time we talked about this theme, it riled up the staff. People had a lot of big feelings about it. Turns out, lots of people here were trying to figure out this very thing in their own lives, which brings us to Act Two, "Crazy Stupid Love."
So when you're talking about the magic camp of people, there's a group that emerges as maybe the most magic of magic. I'm talking about people who say that from the moment they saw their partner, they just knew, for sure, that this was their person. One of our producers here, Aviva DeKornfeld, is skeptical about these claims, and also a little envious. Here's Aviva.
Aviva DeKornfeld
I put out a call to see how many people out there had really felt this thing I assumed was reserved for rom-coms. And let me tell you, there are a lot of you. I got over 700 responses. It seems like all day, every day, people are out there running into their soulmate-- in airports, on buses, at bars.
One person met their partner on the side of the road after they'd gotten a flat tire. Another couple met at band practice. This one woman I talked to met her husband in the middle of the woods. She accidentally wrote his phone number down wrong, and they still ended up together.
Liz met her person in her friend Ingrid's kitchen. She was 17 at the time, and they were hanging out, chatting, when Ingrid's brother came downstairs with a guy Liz had never seen before.
Liz
I turned around, and he looked at me, and I looked at him. And we just went, oh my god. Like, both of us simultaneously just looked at each other, and boom, that's it, I've met the one.
Aviva DeKornfeld
What?
Liz
Yeah. And there was just this awkward, awesome silence.
Aviva DeKornfeld
Liz's mom was there when this all happened, talking to Ingrid's mom.
Liz
And my mum turned to Ingrid's mom, and just said, oh my god, did you feel that? And Kate, their mother, went, oh my god, yes. That's electricity right there. And, yeah, we just knew from that moment on, we're the ones for each other.
Aviva DeKornfeld
How did you know that?
Liz
I don't know, it was just this feeling.
Aviva DeKornfeld
They started dating two weeks later.
Liz
We're still together today, and it's, what, 30-something years later. [LAUGHS]
Aviva DeKornfeld
Oh, my gosh.
Liz
[LAUGHS] I know!
Aviva DeKornfeld
Stories like Liz's drive me insane, because I love them. I get so swept up by the romance. And yet, they couldn't be more foreign to me. It's the certainty that Liz describes. I don't understand it.
Aviva DeKornfeld
What did it physically feel like?
Liz
You know, I can feel it as if it was happening right now. It's just like a tightness in the chest, and like an adrenaline rush, like you've just seen a really big spider or something.
Aviva DeKornfeld
How do you know-- I don't know, you're 17. How do you know it wasn't just hormones?
Liz
I didn't. I didn't. Look, it very well could have been. But at that time, it was so real. It was just like being smacked over the head with a hammer, and like, that's the one.
Aviva DeKornfeld
I've never felt anything like that, no matter how wonderful the person I'm dating is, or how infatuated I feel. I've never been able to shake that gut feeling telling me, this is not forever.
In fact, all of my relationships have ended in some way or another because of my lack of certainty. Everyone in my life is exhausted by my endless romantic dithering. Days after my last breakup, my dad made a point to tell me that if I thought I would find someone better than my ex, I was mistaken.
These people who get that lightning strike moment, with the big boom and flash of recognition-- they really feel like God's favorites, the lucky ones, somehow insulated from all the doubt plaguing the rest of us. Part of me, maybe the jealous part, is skeptical of stories like these.
Like, how could you possibly know in two seconds? You don't know anything about the other person. It seems more likely that you're retrofitting certainty onto the early part of the relationship from the comfort of your established one.
So many of the people who responded to my callout just seemed like they were imposing magic on all kinds of utterly ordinary meet-cutes. But then, I talked to Meghan, who seemed a lot like me. When she was in her late 20s, like I am, she was living in New York, like I do, and like me, feeling increasingly concerned she would never meet her life partner, and kept finding herself saying things like this.
Meghan
Well, I'm going to be single forever. Like, this sucks, and I hate it, and you know, I had just kind of resigned myself to, like, whatever, I'll just do my own thing. And I didn't mind being alone.
Aviva DeKornfeld
And then, of course, she met someone. One afternoon, while she was working as a waitress, a couple of guys walked in and sat at the bar. She spotted them immediately.
Meghan
Well, to be honest, I thought his friend was cuter. But the moment that we started talking to each other, there was no doubt. So I wouldn't say it was love at first sight, necessarily, but it was definitely love at first conversation.
Like, the minute he opened his mouth, and the minute that we started kind of bantering back and forth, I just knew that I was going to marry him. I just knew it. And I almost started to panic, because you don't know if the other person feels the same way.
Aviva DeKornfeld
This guy, Jeff, did feel the same way. By the end of her shift, Meghan was certain Jeff was her person. But she already had plans to go on a date with someone else that night. So she went out, and at the end of the night--
Meghan
I took him back to my house and I slept with him, because I knew that that was the last person that I was going to sleep with before I married Jeff.
Aviva DeKornfeld
What! Really?
Meghan
I did. I was like, I'm going to fuck this guy. I know I'm never going to fuck anybody else again, because I'm going to marry that other guy that I just met.
Aviva DeKornfeld
You're like, this is my last oat to sow.
Meghan
This is my last oat to sow. This is my last one-night stand that I'm ever going to have, and I'm going to go for it.
Aviva DeKornfeld
Meghan got a call from Jeff the next morning while she was still lying in bed with her oat. He asked her out. And a few days later, they went on their first date at a rodeo.
Meghan
And that night, when we were at the rodeo, he leaned over and was like, you know I love you. And I was like, yeah, I know. I know. I love you, too.
Aviva DeKornfeld
You're saying it sort of like, matter of fact. Like, obviously, we love each other. Is that what it felt like?
Meghan
Yeah, it was like yeah, no shit. Like, duh, you know? I mean, it was truly obvious from the end of the first day that we met.
Aviva DeKornfeld
That is so crazy to me.
Meghan
Oh, yeah, 100%.
Aviva DeKornfeld
Had you ever felt that certainty before?
Meghan
Never.
Aviva DeKornfeld
Never.
Meghan
Never, ever. No, never.
Aviva DeKornfeld
Meghan sounds so certain, which makes me wonder if perhaps some people are just wired for certainty and I'm not one of them. Hearing these stories feels like window-shopping for love at a store that's closed. I can see all these beautiful things, can imagine what it might be like to wear them, or how life might be different if I owned them, but can't actually try anything on.
Aviva DeKornfeld
Are you and Jeff still together?
Meghan
Jeff and I are not still together. We actually just recently were legally separated. The best way I can describe it is that I met Jeff day drinking in a bar on a Tuesday at, like, 3:00 PM.
He's a big drinker, and he has some problems with addiction. And I wasn't able to weather that storm with him after trying for many years-- rehab, and we have kids, and I just couldn't do it anymore. Honestly, that's sort of the heartbreaking thing about it, is that I thought we'd be together forever. We both did.
Aviva DeKornfeld
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Meghan
Yeah.
Aviva DeKornfeld
Does breaking up with Jeff shake your sense of certainty that you'd had all those years ago?
Meghan
No, not at all.
Aviva DeKornfeld
Really?
Meghan
Not in the least.
Aviva DeKornfeld
It doesn't make you feel like you were wrong, like you misread something?
Meghan
No. No, not at all.
Aviva DeKornfeld
I find Meghan convincing. Because even after all that, she's still certain about the connection they had. It was real.
I'd been thinking of certainty as a kind of guarantee. If you had it, everything else would fall into place. But there is no guarantee. I get that certainty doesn't always hit you over the head like a hammer. It can take time. But however you get there, it still seems worth trying to find. Because how lovely to get a break, however brief, from wondering, is this right? I'd like to feel that.
Tobin Low
Aviva DeKornfeld is one of the producers on our show.
Act Three: He’s All That
Tobin Low
Act Three, "He's All That." So I want to introduce you to someone, a kid named Cal. And there's a couple of things Cal really wants you to know about him.
Cal
I'm 11 years old. I live in New York City. I live with my parents and my cat. I love cats.
Tobin Low
I have a lot of follow up questions. OK, first of all, what is your cat's name?
Cal
Spider. He has a white spot on his chest-- actually, one on his chest, and one near his butt.
Tobin Low
The things I want you to know about Cal-- he's charmingly straightforward, both serious and unserious. And also--
Tobin Low
I also hear that you have your first boyfriend. Is that right?
Cal
Yes.
Tobin Low
First love-- I think if you're looking for a champion of magic, this is the primordial ooze that magic crawls out of. There's no feeling like that first time you like someone and they like you back. It can feel like a little miracle.
Now, Cal's only 11, so having a boyfriend really just means hanging out at school, texting a bunch. They first met at their school's Gender Sexuality Alliance Club.
Cal
He was really nice. He helped me settle in, and I really liked him. I began to have feelings for him. Around Thanksgiving, I texted him and told him I liked him. The next day, he texted back and told me he knew it, and that he liked me, too. He then asked if I wanted to be his boyfriend. I said, hell yes.
Tobin Low
What do you like about him?
Cal
He's hilarious. He comes up with the best jokes and the best ideas, and he makes me laugh.
Tobin Low
I should also mention they're coworkers.
Cal
We're also on the school's paper together.
Tobin Low
Cal's boyfriend-- he's his editor. I didn't have the heart to tell him that this was maybe not healthy. But it seemed to be working out for them.
Cal
He's my editor, in the Just For Fun column. I make a series of comics about Spider, called "Spider Cat Comics." The first one came out in the first paper two weeks ago, and I think it was pretty good.
Tobin Low
Given that he's your editor, does that mean that he gives you critiques or notes on the things that you make?
Cal
He does.
Tobin Low
And what kinds of notes does he give you back on your comics?
Cal
He likes them. He says they're pretty creative and cool.
Tobin Low
That's very supportive.
Cal
It is. I'm really glad I have him.
Tobin Low
I can tell Cal is riding a high. He's close to that pure magic that happens at the start of a relationship. It's that place where you feel like you've got it all figured out. I asked him if he had any advice for other people about how to get there.
Cal
Tell them you like them. See what they say. If they don't like you back, it may be hard for you. But at least you took a chance. And with taking a chance, it helps. It really helps. Believe me. I've been through that before. I took the chance, and believe me, not everyone gets it on the first time. Most people don't get it on the first time.
Tobin Low
But it sounds like you're asking people to be brave.
Cal
Yep.
Tobin Low
I originally wanted to talk to Cal, because he was experiencing love for the first time. But then, a couple of weeks after we talked, I got word that something had changed. Cal's boyfriend broke up with him.
Cal
He just said, flat-out, over text, I'm breaking up with you. And I said, what? Why? And he explained he wasn't really feeling it with me, and that it wasn't going to work out. And then, he stopped texting me, and then I yelled at him.
Tobin Low
Just to clarify, he called him a son of a bitch.
Cal
And then, I blocked him.
Tobin Low
Oh, wow. So it was not a good breakup then.
Cal
Yeah, it was not friendly. I wanted to just be friends after that, but it seems he doesn't even want to remember I exist. Before this, I actually pictured a bit of a-- a sort of future with him. But I'm guessing he didn't feel the same.
Tobin Low
Talking to Cal now, he's a changed person. All that boldness, how much he trusted his heart-- he's not as sure now.
Cal
Your heart can lead you to someone who you supposedly like, who's funny and cute, but they're not always the best person for you. I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose-- I don't want to be plunged into darkness and shut down forever. Why does the world have to be like this?
Tobin Low
I wish I had the answer, Cal. I don't know why it has to be this way, but I also know it won't be like this forever.
Cal says, he wants to take a break, not try to find a new boyfriend for a while. And he's going to take a different approach the next time around. He says, before he gets back out there, he wants to do some research. He wants to google articles that will tell him more about how to date, how to meet people. He's got a plan which, to me, sounds like a magic person moving the needle ever so slightly over to math.
Tobin Low
Do you think that if you had to choose one, trusting your head or your heart, which one would you choose, do you think?
Cal
I would choose head. Head always has the best instincts. Your heart just leads you, as I said, through rose-colored glasses. Your head tells you more practical.
Tobin Low
Cal's shift in this moment-- it makes sense to me. The times I've been dumped, the last thing I wanted was for someone to tell me to lean into my feelings more. Because, like Cal, I didn't trust my heart. I wanted someone to tell me that there were hard facts to finding love, a process that could be enacted that didn't rely on my dumb feelings.
That's the thing about the two camps. The allure of each is that they offer a path. And depending on where you are, each one may call to you at a different time. But Cal says he's not all the way gone. He's still making room for his heart whenever it's ready to try again.
Cal
As I said, if you didn't have it, you wouldn't find love. Also, it's really weird that heart is represented as love, because it's an organ. Also, the heart shape isn't even what it looks like. It looks more like this blobby, melty, oval thing.
Tobin Low
I agree, Cal. Sometimes none of this stuff makes any sense at all.
Act Four: How To Leave a Guy in 10 Days
Tobin Low
Act Four, "How to Leave a Guy in 10 Days." So far, we've talked a lot about how there can be magic at the beginning of a relationship. But there's another place that magic can pop up, and it's a place you might never think to look for it. Our next story is about someone who's come to believe that you can find magic, know true joy, in a breakup. Here's producer Diane Wu to explain.
Diane Wu
I was once in a 10-year relationship where the question of is this what I really want started to creep in around year four. And so for six years, this was the big unmagical and uncalculatable question of my life. When do you stay, and when do you go?
Eventually, I ended it. And since then, I've been extra wary of being in the wrong relationship again. And maybe as a way to stay sharp, alert, I like hearing about how other people deal with this kind of decision. The writer Marie Phillips has a very specific approach to this question. Think about it like you're at the movies.
Marie Phillips
I have never regretted walking out of a movie. I have, many times, regretted not walking out of a movie. Not finishing things is one of the great joys of life.
Diane Wu
I've never walked out of a film, so I don't know the feeling.
Marie Phillips
You've never walked out of a film?
Diane Wu
No, I feel like I signed up for this, and--
[LAUGHTER]
--maybe something good will happen, still.
Marie Phillips
Have you ever got to the end of the film and thought, I wish I hadn't wasted 2 and 1/2 hours of my life on that?
Diane Wu
Yes, for sure.
Marie Phillips
On the whole--
Diane Wu
But it literally has never occurred to me that I could have left.
Marie Phillips
If the first half-hour is terrible, it's so unlikely to get good. And that is the point at which you can just get up and go.
Diane Wu
And you never wonder more about what happened or how they brought it home or any of that?
Marie Phillips
No, no.
Diane Wu
Marie became this cheerful leaver of relationships fairly recently. She discovered the joy of walking out of things, actually, on a first date. He was a film director and asked her to see a movie, a 3D movie, by Jean-Luc Godard.
Marie Phillips
It wasn't just normal 3D, like when you see on a Marvel movie. He was doing things like, your left eye would be still watching one image, and then he would turn the image on your right eye, so your right eye would suddenly be seeing something completely different.
Diane Wu
Whoa. I feel like my stomach is turning just thinking about it.
Marie Phillips
Yeah, so it's nausea-inducing just to hear the idea, but can you imagine-- so I'm sitting in there, and I'm like, I feel sick within minutes. Really fast I thought, I feel sick, and I don't want to be in here. So I just said to him, I'm going to leave now.
Diane Wu
It was exciting. Marie felt cool and powerful. He stayed. She went and got a glass of wine at the bar. It ended up being a great date. After the film, on the ferry home, they had their first kiss. Two weeks later, the director told her that he loved her. It was the first time any boyfriend had ever told her that. Six months later, they were living together.
Marie Phillips
We had a great time. He's extremely funny. He's very charming. He was a really delightful person. He was just a joy to be around. When he would come home, I'd feel like a puppy that had been left. You know, I'd be bouncing with excitement to see him. He got on well with my family. My friends liked him. We got on really, really well.
Diane Wu
And leaving movies midway-- it became their thing, together. They would do it all the time. I'm telling you all of this because a few years in, things got rough, and Marie had to decide whether or not to walk out of the relationship.
What happened was, the director said he wanted to have an open relationship. Marie was game to try it out. She loved him. She thought maybe she'd change and it would start to feel OK, or maybe he'd change. But nobody changed. She lived for a year in indecision, going back and forth, trying to make it work.
I've been there. I don't recommend it. My indecision looked like finding myself reading the same advice column over and over, recognizing the advice was for me but never following it. I could never tell if it was me or the situation that needed to change.
In Marie's case, all that back-and-forth ended in one moment when it all became clear to her. She realized she didn't like the movie anymore, and that it wasn't going to pick up in the second half. It was during a conversation in their apartment.
Marie Phillips
And I remember, at the time, feeling this extremely physical need to be as far away from him as I could possibly get. In that moment, I felt the opposite of love. Because in a way, love, for me, is the feeling that I want to be close. And then, the opposite feeling of that is like, I just-- I need to get out of here. I need to be as far away from this person as I could possibly get.
Diane Wu
Marie walked out of their apartment and kept walking in one direction until she couldn't go any farther. A few days later, she officially ended the relationship.
Diane Wu
I mean, that sounds like a terrible experience, but also it's like-- but it's also so rare that moments are so clarifying, that you're, like-- you don't even have to think. It's not even a decision, right? You just go. You have to go. There isn't an alternative, whereas I think most of life is somewhere in the mushy middle.
Marie Phillips
I mean, yeah, it's true. It's very rare that you're going to be 100% miserable. But when you're 60% miserable, that's still too miserable. That's more than half. It's not like I have a spreadsheet on this, by the way. But that feeling where most of the time you're feeling terrible-- that's not a way to live.
Diane Wu
You know what is a way to live? Think about it like you're at the movies.
Marie Phillips
You know how when you go to see a film, and you walk in and it's daylight, and then you come out and it's dark?
Diane Wu
Yeah, I hate that.
Marie Phillips
When I picture walking out of a film, when I visualize walking out of a film in my mind, I am always walking out into the sunlight.
Diane Wu
Uh-huh.
Marie Phillips
[LAUGHS] I'm never walking out into the dark, in the rain. I'm always just stepping out into the sunshine. When I see unhappy couples, I'm just like, oh my god, you're both keeping someone else from the joy of being-- someone who could love you is on their own right now.
Diane Wu
Right.
Marie Phillips
If you broke up, someone that loves you could be with you, and someone who loves your husband or your wife could be with them. And just think how much happier all of you would be. And instead, there's some poor single person on Hinge, desperately looking through the profiles, who'd be perfect for you. And you're not on Hinge, because you're too busy fighting with your wife.
Diane Wu
Mm-hmm.
Marie Phillips
Yeah. I mean, god, I'm just-- I'm like, everybody break up!
Diane Wu
Happy Valentine's Day, America.
Tobin Low
Diane Wu is one of the producers on our show. Before we end our show, I think it's only fair that I answer which camp I believe in-- math or magic. In truth, after dating around for most of my 20s, I got tired of both. Magic steered me wrong, and going out on dates just to go on dates also felt exhausting.
So I made up my own theory about what to do. It was kind of mathy. Actually, it was a little like what Zarna did, though nowhere near as specific. I made myself a list of 10 qualities I wanted in a partner, and it was pretty simple. It said things like, I want him to be kind. I want him to appreciate the arts. I was a cellist at the time. I want him to be the kind of person I'd want to call when something funny happens.
And I made a rule for myself that if I was dating a guy that I liked, if I started to get freaked out about whether or not it felt magical enough, I had to pull out the list. And if it was true that he had a majority of the things that I put on my list, I would keep giving it a shot.
Eventually, I met a public school teacher who did art on the side. We laughed over pizza, talked about The Great British Baking Show, which had just debuted in the States. We went on another date, and then another. And any time I left a date and thought, wow, that was fun and easy but was it fun and easy enough, I'd return to the list.
Ah, yes. I still have found someone with a majority of the qualities I want, that really likes me, too. I stopped referring to the list after a while. And then one day, sitting on the couch, something happened. Remember that app that went around a couple of years ago that took a picture of your face and showed you what you look like much older, added wrinkles, and gray hair? One day, my partner did it.
On screen appeared an image of him in his 80s-- with jowls and exaggerated laugh lines, wispy eyebrows. And a feeling crept up that I didn't expect. It surprised me. The instant I saw his face there, I thought, I'd like to be around to see that.
I have no illusions about having cracked some code. But I do think if you find someone and it lasts in a way that makes you happy, no matter how you get there, it's its own kind of magic.
Coda: Coda
Tobin Low
Today's show was produced by Aviva DeKornfeld. People who put together today's show include Elna Baker, Chris Benderev, Phia Bennin, Zoe Chace, Sean Cole, Emmanuel Dzotsi, Valerie Kipnis, Seth Lind, Katherine Rae Mondo, Alaa Mostafa, Stowe Nelson, Nadia Reiman, Ryan Rumery, Frances Swanson, Christopher Swetala, Lilly Sullivan, Nancy Updike, Matt Tierney, and Julie Whitaker.
Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emanuele Berry. Special thanks to Ovi Aragon, Burt Harvey, and the Utah County Passport and Marriage License Office, Alex Fulton, Dave Rizzo, Kim Adams, Marcie Schneider, Sarah Davis, Sabrina Hyman, Sarah King, Emily Ogle, Sara Collins, Francesca Street, Cheryl Hiltzik, Jacob Ritter, and Lori Gottlieb.
Our website, thisamericanlife.org, where you can stream our archive of over 750 episodes for absolutely free-- also, there's all kinds of other stuff-- lists of favorite shows, videos, tons of other things there. Again-- thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.
Thanks to my boss, Ira Glass. Why is he out this week? Well, the other day when he and Torey Malatia were working their side job, they were like, wait, do you cut the red wire or the white wire?
Liz
Like, both of us simultaneously just looked at each other, and boom.
Tobin Low
I'm Tobin Low. Join us next week with more stories from This American Life.
