Oedipus, Fate, and Second Chances

I don't usually post about my dating life, nor to I usually talk about Greek literature; I think today's a good day to break both of those precedences.

Last month, while at church, I saw a cute new girl who looked awfully familiar. After talking to her for five minutes, I figured out that we were both art majors at BYU at the same time. I figured that I had probably worked as a figure drawing model in one of her classes, but later that week, it dawned on me where I knew her from...

Three years ago, I was introduced to one of my favorite things ever: Incredibly Strange Movie Night. A guy in my character design class invited me out to it, and I thought that it sounded like a decent date idea, so I asked out a girl from one of my other classes. It was a great time, laughing at bad movies, but then there was the most awkward private performance ever:



This guy. In a room of nine people. And my date. You might think he's a hilarious parody of rappers, but that's not an act; it's as good as he gets. Shortly after this date, the girl tells me that we should just be friends. I blame Bee Money.

Fast forward to present day, I have a date with this same girl, and she has absolutely no recollection of the fact that we went on that date three years ago. All she knows is that I look vaguely familiar. Fate has given me something truly unique - A Second Chance; not like the second chance that you ex begrudgingly gives you when you want to make up, but a legitimate clean slate.

I start thinking of all the things I have going for me right now that I didn't have before: salient similarities, money, a car, and more confidence. When the date rolled around, I learned from my previous mistakes. I make some lasagna and decide against watching an episode of MST3K with her, as that would be in the same category of incredibly strange. Conversation goes really well, but at the end of the night, it happens again. She tells me that we should just be friends.

At first I'm mad at myself for screwing up twice in a row, but then I wonder, "if I could groundhog's day that date over and over, is there any possibility that it would end with 'let's just be friends'?" And I'm reminded of Oedipus.

You see, one day Ed's mom and dad went to the Oracle to ask what their son would do with his life. Oracle's answer: kill the dad and marry his mom. Being good parents who don't want to kill their kid just because he might commit murder and incest, they decide to be humane and ship the kid really far away, so he won't be able to do that. The result: he kills his dad and marries his mom. And why did he do it? because these ugly wenches decided that he would.

So basically, the moral of Oedipus's story is that if the fates decide something's going to happen, you're kind of screwed. I've never been a fan of this line of thought, but my second chance date made me realize that some things in life can't be changed. The fates decided that this girl was going to tell me that we should just be friends, no matter how or when I asked her out.