Fateful endings

Last week, I was reminded of that film Sliding Doors when I stopped to help a tourist who was lost buy a ticket (he must have been lost, we don't get many tourists in Charlton). I missed my train, despite my good deed. How much did my life change because I missed that train? Probably not a single bit. I watched Sliding Doors again at the weekend, it's one of my favourites. London looks amazing in it (so does John Hannah for that matter) and I remember having an argument with my brother about whether or not Gwyneth Paltrow was British. Her accent is flawless.

But the very thought that everything is fated it still something that I'm undecided about. Because it's very convenient isn't it? Something great happens and you really believed it would, so therefore it must be fate? I'm not buying it. But I do believe there's sometimes more to something than chance. Because sometimes it feels different, doesn't it?

I just don't know if I believe that things are "meant to be". When I broke up with the boy earlier this year, I was exhausted. But because things were so difficult, I'd convinced myself that there had to be a relationship at the end of it because if we could get through everything then "it was meant to be". Like we deserved to be happy or something. Truth is, I do deserve to be happy, just not with him. But I always convinced myself that it didn't matter about how we met. As long as I could convince myself it was meant to be, it didn't matter how we got together. It's the most selfish (or the most blinded) I've ever been. Believing it was fate was so much easier than the truth. I don't think being in love is an excuse for being a bad person.

Believing in fate isn't a get of of jail free card.

Fate is the get out clause, isn't it? It's the thing that a flimsy rom-com hangs on. It's the "it doesn't matter how unlikely it is that things work out - we have fate on our side!" bullshit that pisses me off (which is why I actually like Sliding Doors - the couple actual work). That all important 'meet-cute' that makes you think anything can happen. That one day you'll be walking down the street, throw your latte over someone and the next day you're in love and shagging like rabbits. Most people you threw your coffee over in London would be really fucking mad. And have minor burns that would need seeing to. Love doesn't happen like it does in Notting Hill. It's not real.



I don't buy fate, even though it's a nice idea. Maybe that's the problem. It's too convenient isn't it? I love that because I'm single, people say "you just haven't met the right guy yet" and they're right, but I don't think I'm going to find him bumping into every guy who happens to be holding a cup of coffee. The dry cleaning bill would be very expensive for a start. And I have a habit of walking on the wrong side of the road (I get bored if I walk the same way down the same street all the time). Maybe that's where bad relationships come from - you've just ended up in the wrong place talking to the wrong person, while the right person is in a queue in Starbucks on the other side of the street.

See how stupid that sounds? I don't think people work like that. I think there's a lot to be said for chance meetings but there's more to a relationship than that. There's more to anything that that. Every choice you make in life is your own. Am I writer because it's fate? No, I just realised what I wanted to do. And I'm single because I realised that I would be happier on my own. Sometimes a chance encounter can lead to a wonderful opportunity, but if that's the case, it's very rare you didn't put in the groundwork first.

I think we make our own luck, and our own fate. I think our lives are very much a product of our own actions. Sometimes things work out or go a different way, but that's all there is to it. It's those decisions you make that shape your life, not those chance meetings you have with people. We have chance meetings with people all the time, it's the ones that last more than a second that are the important ones. Because that's when the people you meet change you. Whether it's a kid on the tube who is laughing at your shoes, or someone you're going to spend the rest of your life with. The things that make you stop are the things that matter. And those things happen all the time. I just don't think we always pay attention to them. Sometimes small things are bigger than we realise.

Imagine if fate did exist, but most of the time we're so caught up in our own lives that we're too busy to really see it. Talking to strangers and people we don't know makes life more interesting, whatever the reason for it. And it's always funny when kids laugh at your shoes. Even if you don't realise it at the time.

Fate's a nice story in a pretty box, but you could offer me all the meet-cutes in the world and I'd still rather I was in control of my own happiness, instead of waiting for it to come along.