Stanger: How did you meet your significant other?
What a complicated question. The truth is, our families had known each other for years, and somehow, we were always around each other without ever really being around each other. On my side, I was the quiet one, I hated noise, I hated unnecessary chatter. Life could be happening all around me, and all I wanted was my own space. You could probably have looked at me and thought, there goes that nonchalant guy who hates everybody. And honestly, I wouldn’t have blamed you, I was distant, not because I necessarily hated people, but because I had built a life where distance felt more comfortable than being known.
I became a bit of a character in the family. The guy who never showed up when everyone was putting their hands together to work, the guy who barely spoke, the guy who looked at people as if to ask, Why are you bothering me? Everyone would be dressed up, and there I was in my tracksuit, wondering why we were all pretending to enjoy the same noise. It was almost a fairytale to some people that I even belonged to the family at all. And somehow, she saw that version of me too; the distant one, the gloomy one, the person who didn’t seem to have much kindness to give. She probably had every reason to leave me exactly where I was.
But life is strange, years later, after our own relationships had left us tired and disappointed, we somehow found ourselves back in the same place. We had people in common who had hurt us, but never said it out loud. We had stories that didn’t need much explaining and somewhere between all of that, a simple hello happened. A conversation of catching up became a late-night chat, then another one and somehow, without me even realising it, I was being taken out of my dark place; my cave, the place I always went home to and being shown a garden by this girl who giggled, laughed, dreamed, and carried a vision for life that I couldn’t understand at first.
She would ask me, “Why are you always like this? Why don’t you laugh? You’re so nonchalant. You act like you don’t care about anybody.” and maybe she wasn’t wrong. But then she saw something else, she saw the kindness I had hidden away, the side of me that could listen. the side of me that cared more than he knew how to show. And when she wondered why I was different with her, I think the only honest answer I had was that nobody had ever really made me feel comfortable enough to come out of hiding. Nobody had ever seemed interested in asking what was happening behind the silence. So, there I was, slowly giving her everything, the good, the flaws, the thoughts that never made it out of my head. And there she was, still asking, “Is he telling the truth? Does he really mean what he’s saying?”
Maybe that’s what we are, couple born from the strangest circumstances, building something despite the noise around us. We sometimes joke that in our past lives we must have caused chaos, broken hearts, and started wars because surely life couldn’t have made our story this complicated for no reason. We’ve both made mistakes, people have been disappointed, tears have fallen. But somewhere in the middle of all of it, we found ourselves asking a question that probably sounds foolish to everyone else: Why not us?
So, how did I meet my significant other?
I could tell you it was through our families. I could tell you it was a simple hello that turned into a 2 a.m. conversation. I could tell you she found me in my cave and showed me that there was still a garden outside.
But that wouldn’t be the whole truth.
I think life had been writing our story around us long before we knew how to read it.
We were always around each other.
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