otoh

Have you met my wife?

Neither have I. Well, at least I hope not.

There’s only one woman in my past that I have thought might have been the right one. But we met at a really wrong time for me to make such a commitment. What a cruel twist of fate that would be — to meet the one and only right person at the wrong time. Is the universe that unfair? So, I’ve continued under the assumption that it was never meant to be, that we aren’t the ones for each other.

Two old middle aged men
Were sittin’ up in the corner bar
They were lying about what
Wonderful lovers they are

Bending each other’s ear
They were bending their elbows too
Holding their arms apart
Just the way fishermen do, singing

You should have seen the one that got away
You should have seen the one that got away

Two old middle aged girls
Were sittin’ in the beauty salon
Just waiting for their nails to dry
They were trading the recipes

And all of the ways to save
One hundred and one night stands
With a brand new permanent wave,
singing

You should have seen the one that got away
You should have seen the one that got away

I think there are some people who should not be married. And often I think I’m one of them. I don’t have a great track record with intimate relationships. I know a lot of people that ARE married, but I don’t think they should be. I don’t get to make that choice for anyone but myself, though. And I may not be qualified: I have four siblings. Between them two are divorced (one of them twice) and two are married to alcoholics. I really don’t believe I would fare much better, especially considering some of the poor choices I have made.

I realize that marriage becomes a more and more remote possibility the older I get. I decided a long time ago that I prefer to be alone than to be with the wrong person. And I haven’t met the right person. Have I? Remaining single because I haven’t met the right person is a lot easier to deal with than the possibility that I met her somewhere along the way and failed to realize it. How much of a role does fate play in this?

Hindsight makes the heart grow fonder
And that’s what it cost
When you run around saying I love you
With your fingers crossed

And it’s too late to go back now
And that’s just about as good as it gets
For rock’n'roll Romeos and their jukebox Juliets

And you can see them out on the street
Tryin’ to figure out what it all means
When they try to make their lives complete
In the safety of their dreams

By putting their arms around the one that got away
And you should have seen the one that got away
oh you should have seen the one that got away
And you should have seen the one that got away

Of course, all this depends on buying into the notion that there is only one right person for each of us. To the pragmatist in me the odds against that seem astronomical. But I’m a product of my raising as they say and I would find this a much more dreary world if such romance does not exist. For someone.

The One That Got Away by Steve Goodman