Getting my pigeons in a row

I sit thinking in a park for about 15 minutes before work. A pigeon is a few feet away from me - a situation that would normally be cause for concern, but today doesn’t seem to phase me. The pigeon pecks at the remnants of a mostly eaten sandwich, looking perplexed at the best way to eat a scrap of turkey. He picks it up in his beak several times, only to find it bounce out moments later. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever wished I could speak bird. I would tell the sorry sack that the best way to get what he wanted was to leave it alone, strategically wearing it down from the edges.

It would be a stretch to say that my aviary observation led to a sudden epiphany, so suffice to say that finding myself identifying with a species that consistently freaks me out sparked a kernel of...something. I was like that bird, and you may think the piece of turkey represents the race of men, but that’s giving them too much credit. No, the piece of turkey is something much bigger: love.

One night a friend was commiserating on my latest romantic hijinx. He told me that I didn’t do anything wrong. He told me that I just want to fall in love. Intriguing hypothesis, don’t you think?

There are two different notions competing for attention in my mind’s eye when it comes to that abstract notion of love and making it my own. Both philosophies reflect pieces of advice I’ve heard time and again. The way I see it, I could:

1. Relax and wait for love to find me. If I had a dollar for every time tried to console me with the sincere statement, “Love comes when you least expect it,” trust me, I’d be a rich woman. That statement probably sounds snarky, but I promise it’s not meant to be. It’s just that to me, that advice is like giving someone a racket and ball and telling them that’s all they need to play their first game of tennis. If I could stop overanalyzing and ‘expecting,’ I would, so the key is to learn how to look at every guy as a potential friend. Nothing more. Should he decide there’s more to our connection, I’m sure he’ll let me know.
2. Keep putting myself out there. This choice takes guts, something I’m not sure I’ll have much of in the coming weeks but it’s never bad to plan ahead. It falls under the category of “No risk brings no reward,” or whatever the cliche phrasing is. But even cliches are rooted in truth, making this a viable plan of action. The problem is going to be knowing the difference between putting myself out there when it’s right and putting myself out there because I’m grasping at straws.

In the awful Pretty Woman semi-sequel, Runaway Bride, Joan Cusak tells Julia Roberts her wedding to Richard Gere didn’t happen because the ducks made a “V” instead of a “W” for wedding. Joan asserted that it’ll finally happen once Julia has all her ducks in a row, which meant figuring out who she was without a man. Maybe there’s another lesson in that for me. Maybe before choosing which path to take, I should focus on getting my ducks in a row. Or pigeons, as the case may be.