Tuesday, October 12, 2010

"There, now we're on the same plane."

Love Triangles. Sometimes other shapes, a trapezoid perhaps, or some kind of strange rhombus. (The ones your geometry teacher threw into the test to make sure you knew your formulas, even though that shape looked absurd and resistant to any preplanned equation.) Not a square, because the sides are all even and the angles equal. And absolutely never a circle, because it’s never-ending, and harmonious and encapsulates everything in a pretty little cliché package.

Triangles. Because one point always reaches out to two others, because the only way to get to the third angle is through the second.

I’d been in love with someone unavailable for months. And lo and behold, one day I’m introduced to his friend, who quite quickly falls for me. Ninety percent of the time, this is how we know love. Unrequited, unreturned, secret, and completely missed. We rarely meet. Hardly ever can we cut the third point of the triangle and reduce our existence to a straight line that runs on a single plane. Because if we are not part of a triangle, we are merely a point. A one-dimensional dot surrounded by other haphazard dots, some on the same plane, some living in an alternate dimension. In fact, if we are lucky, we meet up with two others, we experience the passion of creating a three-pointed shape, even if that passion is misdirected and unanswered.

Every once in a while, however, we meet another dot, other than ourselves, who may or may not be on the same plane we are. The passion is there, the energy. The equation seems to be well-made. Suddenly you look around and realize that there is no one else. The third point, that you have grown so accustomed to, is not there. The only shape you are creating is a single line, between two points, on a plane all by itself.