Superstitions

Are you superstitious about anything? Maybe it’s black cats, or ladders or even broken mirrors. It may sound silly, but it only sounds that way if you don’t believe it. If it’s something you believe in, you’ll do what you have to do to take precautions. One of my favorites these days is married couples who have their names tattooed on each other. Funny how it seems to work out to be a complete disaster doesn’t it?

I bring this up because I seem to be noticing some strange things happening. It’s not the kind of thing you notice right away. It takes time to develop into any sort of noticeable pattern. Apparently I have two such occurrences in my life that I feel inclined to pay more attention to in the future. One is a date and one is a habit. Both of them seem to spell some sort of disaster for me.

On the date in question some significant things have happened. One year on this date, I had a really good first date. It was nice. Dinner at a Chinese restaurant, a long walk, and a lot of conversation. Four years later on the same date, there was a marriage proposal. I said yes, only to say no months later. Can’t fault the date on that one, I know. And, at that point, I wouldn’t have said I had any problem with the date other than just to serve as a reminder. Sometimes it sucks to have a good memory for these things.

Fast forward to about 3 years ago. Once again I found significance with that date. This time it was pretty far removed from my actual experience, yet it still made an impact. The lead singer of my favorite band was born on that date. I let the past be the past, and tried to think more favorably about each time that day approached. I thought it was working well.

This year I was invited to several birthday parties. One of them was for a friend of mine at the spa. Her birthday was also on said date. However, her birthday party was 2 days later. It was there that I met someone new. Is that a stretch? I thought about it at the time, and decided that since I didn’t meet him on the actual day, there was nothing to worry about. That was until today. Today marked the end of that relationship. So, am I placing too much emphasis on this date? Again, if you have never experienced anything like it, I can see how you might find this observation to be a whole lot of coincidence.

So, then there is the other odd set of coincidences. This one was a habit I found myself getting into and once I saw the pattern I stopped doing it. This one has to do with email folders. When I was doing a lot of online dating, I used to keep email folders with each person’s name on them. It sounds like there were a lot of names. I don’t mean to make it sound that way, but I just like to stay organized. Anyway, I found this really interesting pattern starting to happen. Almost as soon as I gave someone a folder with their name on it, I would stop hearing from them. In the online dating world, that really isn’t so strange. Still, I found it a little amusing, so I decided to try an experiment.

I have a friend in Michigan that I met online. We went through the normal song and dance of sending emails back and forth. I decided to give his folder a different name. I just called it “Michigan.” The difference? I still have the folder and the friend. No, it never materialized into something romantic, but don’t you think that’s strange? Anyway, I guess I decided that the new guy deserved a folder of his own, so I gave him one with his name on it. Like the others that came before, it appears to be time to get rid of the folder. Apparently I have tapped into the online version of tattooing someone’s name on me. Thank God the removal process is easier. I just wish it was painless.