Go Fish

The other night I was lying in bed thinking about love.

Okay, so maybe that statement is a little bit too dramatic. Really, I was just doing what I always do before drifting off to sleep: listening to my iPod, thinking about the day, mulling things over in general. One thing that was on my mind was the interesting aspects of getting to know someone - specifically someone that in the future you might consider dating.

There are those funny little random conversations at the beginning of the relationship, usually centered on a common interest or random comment like "Nice fanny pack" or "Yuck! Tofu dogs??" Often there is a lot of laughter or maybe some playful joking... (For some reason seeing how that person responds to and generates humor plays a big part in understanding - at least in my own relationships.)

Then comes the rapid-fire word association round:
Person A: Favorite food...
Person B: Pickles.
Person A: Coffee...
Person B: Dunkin Donuts.
Person A: Richard Nixon...
Person B: Hippies.

Some people may see this phase as the collection of "useless" knowledge about that person's preferences, but sometimes you really do "get to know" each other - if only on a surface level. But isn't it interesting how we approach the enigma that is another person by breaking them into little bite-sized pieces?

This is where my late-night revelation comes in. Isn't this phase a lot like playing the card game "Go Fish"? You have a certain combination of preferences and personality traits, much like a cards hand (the other person has their own hand). I just picture in my head this process of "getting to know each other" as asking "do you have a red five?" You find a match and set it aside, then ask another question. But sometimes, after several failed attempts to find a match among the cards, you decide that it is time to say "go fish" and you release the relationship to find your matches with someone else.

Unlike "Go Fish," the goal is not always to match all of your "cards" with the other person's - after all, they say that opposites attract - so I guess that's where the analogy begins to break down. Okay, I'll face it - the analogy isn't exactly perfect...

But isn't love a just little bit like "Go Fish"?