Kevin met Kate on Facebook. They exchanged inbox messages for a while before finally planning an actual date. Two years later, Kevin and Kate got married in a beautiful garden wedding in Naivasha. I attended that wedding.
Kiptum had met Wanjaa several times before but he didn’t really pay her much thought. At the time he was in a committed relationship with another girl from his church. Three years later, he met Wanjaa again at a camping trip that had been organized by one of his friends. He had just broken up with his Girlfriend of five years. He couldn’t remember where he had seen Wanjaa before, but he was sure they had met. She couldn’t remember ever meeting him before. They had a good time. Everyone at the camp could see that those two were really hitting it off. They are now engaged, due to be married in a few months.
I have more of these out-of-the-blues kind of encounters that culminate in that blessed eternal bond between two Love birds. Every time I think about it, it baffles me how random these stumble-upons are. I try desperately to find a pattern, any common ingredient among them that forms the recipe for a happy ending. All my efforts so far have been futile. There’s no pattern. They are as random as the first ‘ma-three’ that shows up when you go to the bus stage.
God is cruel; the master puppeteer who makes events happen as he wishes, leaving the subjects totally at the mercy of his will or whim if he has any. Do we have any control whatsoever on whom the person meant for us is? No! Do any of our actions, good or bad, influence his choice of the next random person who will become our better half?
We grow up forming this mental picture of who the person we want to spend our life with looks, acts or talks like. We all have an ever evolving blueprint that we hope he or she will fit into like a glove. Ask anyone who is married whether this is the case. It’s not.
So every time I meet someone (and as a single guy this happens quite frequently) and I think, huh, she looks like someone I would take home to mama, I try to hold back the excitement. But I’m a romantic; so again, my efforts at not trying to pin point THE ONE are also painfully futile.
If there was one request I’d make to God today, it would be that as my wedding day gift, he sends me a video tape of the first time I meet my soon to be wife. Wouldn’t that be something?
Yesterday, I met Kanji. I found it weird that she introduced herself as Kanji and as expected, my first reaction was, uhm, I thought Kanji is a man’s name. We had nearly bumped into each other as I got into the pizzeria where I was to meet some long lost friends. She was rushing out to receive a phone call, and I was rushing in to avoid being anything more than thirty minutes late. Back at the table, as I feigned huge remorse for my lateness, she walked up to our table and apologized once again for the little head on collision we just had at the door. I apologized in return and she retreated back to her girlfriends at a nearby table.
“That’s one pretty girl bro”
“And polite too! That’s rare in Nairobi!!”
“I know…So how have you guys been!? Long time!”
Of course I got her number later on. And as I wrote her this text message, I wondered if this is the story I’ll be telling over and over for the rest of my life…
“Sup Kanji. Twas nice bumpin (literally) into you today. Hope to see you again soon. Nite.”
Your romantic choices say a lot about who you truly are.
PS: It seems to be the enlightened opinion of most of my friends, and my readers that I should take a step back from relationships and focus on me for a while. To them, I only have this to say. If you want to know who you really are, look at the person you choose to call Special! Your romantic choices say a lot about who you truly are. Do you agree?
The search for Daisy’s replacement continues.
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Lawrence is the guy next door; A young, aspirational Kenyan gentleman; But most of all, a romantic soul in search of true love.