Neverending

18

Thirty-four kilometres to go and I still have significant concerns about how well I'll fit in at Terrafirme. Maybe the inevitable chaos will camouflage the inadequacies currently piling up in my private 'Cons' column. I'm a reasonably confident person but the absolute lack of assurance that my girlfriend still loves me – or even, has bothered to check that I'm still alive mid-Chaos Level three – is not doing much to stoke my ego. I know this situation, and my feelings around it, shouldn't be based on something that would probably seem trivial to many, especially given the exceptional circumstances we find ourselves in. But I'm a guy. And that's what's currently swirling around my cerebrum, along with some raging survival instincts and an increasing awareness of hunger. If I've learned anything about myself over the last few years, it's that accepting what I feel and who this makes me is essential.

But more pressing than my fragile ID are the thoughts that haunt me about what we've done to our home. I look out of the window and around at what I can see of our Earth, though it's passing by so quickly. I feel a pang of nostalgia for the good old days, even though, ostensibly, nothing yet has changed.

I shake my head. I can't solve every problem I'm facing alone, on this one car ride. And I'm not going to be able to fix what humans have or haven't done these last few millennia. 'You die if you worry; you die if you don't'. My Grandmother told me once. Gran raised a very good point. Which makes me think, why do I ever worry about anything, ever? But of course, I do. We all do. Maybe the point is, choose the things you worry about carefully. Which isn't so far from: don't chase the wrong things (I wish I'd learned that lesson a whole lot earlier than I did).

So yeah, of course the state of the world this minute is worrying. But I have to choose what to focus on. The people I love. Staying in one piece. All that.

As Delta accelerates my car automatically over the increasingly smooth surface of the highway, I find myself really thinking about Juliette. Sure, I think about her all the time. But now I find myself trying to imagine how the twinning conversation might have gone (might still go? a part of me can't help but hope). Does she love me? I think that she does. I know how I feel about her. There's a theory that you don't feel chemistry unless it coalesces between you – that the other person's feeling it, too. But let me tell you, my friends, I've been in enough unrequited situationships (two) to know that this isn't always the case. I've had hellish chemistry with women who've figuratively binned me with their coffee grounds the next morning.

So.

I don't think you can ever truly tell what a person is feeling about you. I only think that you can be honest (but not overbearingly so because no-one wants to date that guy) and hope that they'll be honest, too. I've toyed with the idea of what the world might look like if we couldn't conceal our intentions in any way. It then sort of bewilders me that most of what we do and say are full of misdirection and rarely present the full picture. And then I sort of come back around to thinking that the ability to deceive is, in its own way, quite sexy. Desire and secrets being intrinsically linked. Make of that what you will.

So, yeah. Despite feeling fairly secure about Juliette and our feelings for one another, it was always going to be a delicate and uncertain conversation when it came to twinning. It's not that it has to be (though usually is) permanent. But agreeing to it with a partner is a stalls out, cards on table-type manoeuvre. You're saying to each other, and to pretty much everyone that knows you, this is it, for me. And that would be fine if you had maybe a year or two to figure this out. But you don't. You get seven months. Not a day more. And it doesn't really feel like long enough to be having those types of conversations. But they're the rules and nobody – not even the highest ranking – gets to make an exception. You want to be with someone? Come seven months, it's in or out. It's a tough gig and I've seen it break more than plenty of couples I've known.

Like most things that come out of City Hall, its basis is mired in data science with a dose of behavioural science thrown in for rigour. Apparently, 213 days is a sort of tipping point for us love-struck humans. If you aren't crazy about someone after 213 days, the chances are, you never will be. And the next 1000 or so days after this milestone don't sway things either way, at least not statistically. Which is to say, being forced to commit to another person after a couple of hundred days is a very strong factor for longevity. There's evidence that leaving it too long can result in a sort of commitment ambivalence, resulting in weaker ties and, consequently, more people going their separate ways.

I've thought about this and I have a few of my own theories. But I guess it kinda makes sense that those prone to flip-flapping around – the do-I-like-them-don't-I-like-them players - well, it cuts that out. Resulting in, I suppose, couples more destined to last.

It doesn't mean I think it's a good idea, though. And it certainly doesn't mean it makes that conversation any easier.