We are engineered to assume that minor details are relevant to who we fall in love with. We have been told that because we share the same favorite band, we have to share the same bed. I know this because I’ve fallen into this societal trap before. I dated a girl for seven months because she took a picture of her poop. This is the reason for my fleeting crushes. I get excited about little clues that imply fated love.

These rom-com reasons for romance are stupid.

There is a reason though that I keep coming back to these minute details that determine long term life decisions: I like thinking about my wedding. One of the parts I’m most excited about is the vows. Vows are the time when you get to say something romantic/funny/inside jokey and everyone is listening, and the best way to do vows is to use a minute detail to symbolize a greater truth about the relationship. I think of vows for every person I meet who I am even vaguely sexually attracted to ever within the first week of knowing them. Each is a story about some seemingly innocuous incident that ends with an analogy to a deeper analysis of why our relationship works. They’ve had to do with the way they flavor pancakes, their favorite children’s movie, their breast size, their eclectic love of tea-varieties, our first words spoken to each other being “I love you,” and the aforementioned poop-pics.

I don’t think that this is unhealthy if it doesn’t cross over into the realm of following through.

So, I just won’t follow through, because at least with loneliness I don’t have to worry about following a cliched path.