There was some invisible string tying you to me

Isn’t it just so pretty that in the way we lock eyes amidst a crowded room, share a brief laugh with a stranger, or end up talking to someone not on our radar before, it’s fate’s play of bringing a person to our door when we were not even looking for it at all.

And this is what makes an encounter organic looks like: just a sudden and authentic experiences with a person that somehow weaves itself into our own fabric of almosts.

Waiting without looking

When you’re the kind of person who rarely goes out of the house, it’s easy to think that you may never experience the spark of randomly meeting strangers on a jeepney or a cafe who’d turn into something more. After all, how can you be found when you don’t let yourself be found?

Sure, it really is a passing thought – how people’s organic encounters happen when out of all the people around them, there’s a stranger that happened to be at the right place, at the right moment, at the right time. For some hopeless romantics watching this unfold, it raises the question: Am I doing something wrong for my own encounter not to have found me yet? 

However, it might just be less about being in the right place and more about allowing yourself to just be.

When it just clicks

Even if I haven’t experienced it myself, the idea of organic encounters is impossible not to crave, especially when it hits 10 p.m. It’s a simple connection where it all just centralizes on the idea that you meet a stranger in a random place, and a shared smile or eye contact can eventually ignite a spontaneous conversation and something meaningful for the long term.

Though simple as it may seem, there’s something alluring about how it happens. Without forcing yourself to dress a specific way or without planning what to say to a random stranger, it happens without effort yet all of it falls into place as if, somehow, it was supposed to be that way from the start.

It could be a simple act of locking eyes with a stranger you’re attracted to, sitting beside a stranger and sharing a short conversation, reaching for the same snack, ordering the same drink, and just striking up a small talk with someone who shares the same interests as you. All of these just paint a picture of what could be, and it lingers.

In an interview with Jam, a friend who was on the way to Manila from Masbate, she had an encounter. She wasn’t trying to look interesting, wasn’t even expecting company other than music and food. Then one of the guys from a nearby table suddenly sat beside her and asked if he could join – no smooth pick-up lines, just curiosity alone, as he asked my friend with small talk about hometowns that turned into a full conversation. And when my friend left, and the guy returned to his table, his friends were smiling at him. 

Jam said she could feel that he was interested in her but she couldn’t feel any spark, just appreciation that the guy approached her and saw something in her that caught his attention. And maybe that’s why the moment stayed with her, not because it was romantic but because it was simple. Just two strangers talking with no expectations.

The charm of organic encounters stands out more than ever when you consider how the grand scheme of dating works now. Connection is rarely simple, where there are multiple rules to follow, a supposed strategy of texting to not appear as too clingy, and the idea of acting more than friends but less than lovers.

But why does looking for someone feel so complicated?

The answer lies in the small frameworks that fit how we build connections with others.

Attachment styles in play

Securely attached people tend to move with ease, enjoying intimate relationships and freely sharing their feelings with other people. For avoidants, they have great difficulty with intimacy and close relationships, struggling to share their thoughts and emotions with partners. Meanwhile, anxiously attached people crave closeness and fear abandonment.

Those with a disorganized attachment, though, often experience conflicting desires for intimacy and fear of betrayal, which typically leads to a back-and-forth cycle of wanting closeness one moment and pulling away the next. And whether we are self-aware of it or not, it conditions how we connect, even those that were organically made.

In a deep conversation with Sen, another friend, she told me about someone she had a mutual understanding with, a person who liked communicating and checking in. While she, though, would shut down without warning. Eventually, the boy got tired and stopped reaching out, and my friend knows she contributed to their distance, yet she just couldn’t fully explain why she kept pulling away.

It speaks volumes about the quiet struggle of how attachment styles impact our connections with others, that sometimes the battle isn’t between two people but rather, with ourselves.

Situationships

More often than not, casual and undefined connections are rampant, where feelings between two parties are clear, yet neither of them wants to be committed, even though each partner may have different expectations for the relationship. While it works for some, it’s still undeniable that the lack of stability and constant asking of ‘what are we?’ can be stressful.

One of my friends, MJ, shared the conflict that she keeps when the person she likes acts like he likes her back, with their call name and care for each other that seems to go beyond friendship. Yet, the next moment, he pulls away with no clarity or assurance.

Organic encounters can have no label as well, but their uncertainty isn’t rooted in avoidance. Rather, they grow from small and meaningful moments that are genuine and free from overthinking. 

Performativity

Unlike organic encounters, where a soft smile or a sweet hello happens naturally, the existence of performativity in dating prompts a person to have a certain musical taste, outfit style, drink order, or gestures that they don’t normally hold, just to be liked. It typically depicts the idea of identity loss as their authentic self becomes artificial to fit a specific criterion that isn’t necessarily them.      

Slow-burn and love bombing

Meeting someone now often feels like it’ll be too much, too soon, or absolutely nothing at all. Love bombing is a common trope, where it’s the act of bombarding a person with attention and affection, making their partner emotionally and socially dependent on them. It can feel thrilling a first, but it is a far cry from what an organic encounter typically proposes: the slow-simmering build of a slow burn romance, where the chemistry between two people is noticed but not acknowledged until it all just accumulates over time.

Strings of every almosts

Organic encounters aren’t guaranteed, really, nor are they something we can chase whenever we step outside our homes. But when they happen out of the blue, completely unbidden, it’s a gentle reminder that not everything meaningful must be manipulated with a strategy.

If anything, the mere act of just being there, open enough for whoever knocks on our doors, is how our almosts really begin.