The Significance of Being Insignificant

Photo by Nigel Tadyanehondo on Unsplash

People often talk about their significant other. The 'other' who fills the particles in space where they experience a void. Either physically or emotionally. 

In a world with over seven billion people at any one time, what are the chances of finding ones significant other? When it is so easy to feel insignificant. 

That may well be the question Elane asked herself after her 

twenty-first internet date blew up and allowed for yet another embarrassing yet absurdly funny blog post entry.

Perhaps someone might find her quest to love funny. As she clearly didn’t. She would, however, if there was a bright side to these sombre circumstances, be able to make money out of her disastrous love life. 

On her way to write this uncomfortable yet humorous encounter, she stops by her collection of dictionaries lined up in formation on the bookshelf. When looking at the Thesaurus’s array of synonyms for ‘significant’ the idea of a significant other becomes more overrated by the word. 

Remarkable. Possibly. Serious. That feels scary. Weighty. No thank you!

The emotional weight she has been lugging around might just break the camel's back if she had to cater for someone else’s lack of emotional intelligence and maturity. 

She soon comes to the conclusion that the idea of a significant other may well be a social construct. A construct we mere mortals have been more than happy to grow accustomed to. When really the reality dawns on her that we as individuals are significantly insignificant and may in ourselves find the significance of being our right-own-selves and that is what should be desired and pursued. 

Seeing as the Thesaurus further likes to define significance as rarity, unusualness and maybe her favourite, momentousness. Living and creating our own reality, in a world of commonality and the unavoidable nudge to similarity in society, the significance of life becomes wholeheartedly accepting and embracing one's insignificance. Being able to live one's life to your own unusually unique and vivacious self. 

The realisation that having a significant other may have its pros, yes. But realising that one, in themselves is significant - in their own bubble of reality. 

And so, hitting send, on what would be her last blind date blog post, Elane deletes all online profiles for individuals looking for love. Instead, she starts her quest to find significance in her own life by scrolling the internet for…who knows. Anything but a significant other.