Anyone Could Be ‘The One’ – You Just Have To Keep An Open Mind

We’ve all experienced a time when we’ve been walking down the street, or standing in a room, or sitting at a restaurant, and spotted an attractive stranger from afar. More often than not, we never act on the thoughts running rampant through our minds or the impulse testing our patience, and for any number of reasons.

Maybe they have somewhere to be, maybe they’re just trying to enjoy their meal or their latte in peace, or maybe they’re just trying to mind their own business. Factor any of these in — plus the fact that you literally know nothing of the person other than that they’ve caught your attention with their physical attributes — and you have successfully convinced yourself that it’s not worth looking into and that you should continue on with whatever it is you were doing.

But what if they had a couple of minutes to spare? What if they were working up the courage to say something to you or hoping you’d come over to them?

What if this moment is divine intervention and you’re choosing to ignore it out of common courtesy?

Somewhere on my ever-growing bucket list is an item that includes making that move to chat up a perfect stranger on the street who I happened locked eyes or exchange smiles with, or was someone I just thought was insanely attractive. I owe it to the hopeless romantic in me to follow do it at least once, if not several times over.

It’s probably not going to end up like the movies, where the guy confidently approaches the pretty girl, sparks fly, and numbers are exchanged after continuous, witty banter. It will probably be an awkward introduction, there probably won’t be any sparks; hell, she probably won’t be interested, and all I did was misinterpret a smile or a situation.

None of those are reasons not to try. Rejection is a part of life, and we will be rejected by more people than those that choose to invest their time and care in us.

I believe we should be relentless — but not desperate — in the pursuit of love because the weight of hundreds of rejections is incomparable to that of one great love. The gut-wrenching pain from decades of rejection will feel like nothing more than indigestion when we find love and it makes us feel invincible.

There’s all this talk about “The One” — the person we’ll end up spending the rest of our lives with — but all people talk about is what they will be like. We almost never talk about where we’ll meet them or how they work their way into our hearts to the point where we decide our lives will be better off with them in it every single day until we pass on.

The reality — whether we chose to acknowledge it or not — is that anyone can be “The One.”

It could be the blind date you’re reluctant to go on, the ex you swore you would never go back to, the friend you only ever saw as a friend, or a perfect stranger you decided to chat up one day.

It’s a kind ideology that when it comes to your eventual life mate, “You just know,” but there are too many examples that disprove the notion of love being in-your-face and unmistakable. For some, it’s love at first date; for others, love develops over time; and for some, love is a realization.

Anyone could be “The One,” but will we have the courage or open mind to find out?