A Bad Hand

Are some people dealt with a better or worse hand in love? Do some people find their “soulmate” earlier in life than others? Are some people cursed with a bad love life? What makes someone have a bad hand in the game of love?

While I was creating this piece I was reflecting on all the different types of relationships that surround me. There are some who are married, some who are newly engaged, some who just moved in with their partner, some starting to go on first dates again after a bad heartbreak. And then there are the ones who just can’t seem to get it right. The ones who go on bad date after bad date, breakup after breakup, who are constantly picking up the pieces of their broke heart, the ones who have a harder time navigating the dating world. What makes others more successful in love? Is it pure luck? Or is it something deeper in us that we’re afraid to face?

The typical analogy for love is that it is a game. Thinking about your next move, the players and pieces on the board, weighing out the pros and cons, betting on yourself and the other person that this will work out, gaining or losing a best friend, a life companion, a soulmate. It is a gamble to see whether a relationship will work out or not. We don’t know if it’s actually going to work out until it does. So we take a deep sigh and roll the dice anyway. We shuffle the cards and pray we pull the right one this time. Some people lie and cheat to get what they want, others are just naturally good at the game, and others have bad odds. There are winners and there are losers, at least society makes us feel like that if you don’t have your shit together by the age of 30.

It’s such a cliche thing to say that love is a game and a gamble and yet, there are so many parallels.