parallel or intersecting lines

this is in response to a question P asked me. here is her question:

What is a better state of a relationship?
Being like two parallel lines? Or being like two lines that are constantly growing towards eachother, i.e .... converging lines ?

Parallel lines .. never meeting....but staying together.. never intersecting....but allowing eachother's identity seperate and identifiable.....never influencing eachother....but not letting eachother influence eachother as well... just stay close.. but still not close enough?

Converging lines..that constantly grow towards eachother... with every single moment passing by.. till one day they meet.. and then ..feel the need of stopping the growth because.. if they dared to grow any further..they will intersect... and finally ........diverge....and the more they grew.. the farther they would get......and keep getting distanced...till they exist.....? So.... how does one make a choice to 'stop growing'? How can one stop to grow? This has been puzzling me since the day i ever got into a relationship.... really?

okay, i am actually going to answer this. why? because fools rush in where angles fear to tread. :D

let us agree to work with in the framework of this question and ignore the trivialities of why do we have to be lines, why not other geometric shapes etc etc. and more importantly, let us agree to stop pondering the absurdity of the question, because that is no fun at all. you are however free to question the logic within the given rationale. okay, now that we have established the ground rules...

i hope you would accept that geometrically a line is defined as such that there is no origin or destination so to speak. thus defined, the specific case of these two lines meeting at some point and thus stopping there, is not acceptable since, if they stop; they cease to be lines. mathematically we would then have two rays emanating from the said point and diverging into eternity. not a very pleasing scenario in this particular analogy. i do not believe you would like that P. philosophically either, i do not think stopping your growth in order to stay with someone is a very healthy thing to do. so that is out of the picture.

now we have the case of the parallel or the intersecting lines. considering the fact that you live from eternity to eternity, the actual time you stay at the point of intersection, would not be vastly satisfying, would it? so essentially, in both scenarios you spend the majority of your life time, not being together. you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

which one of the two you choose is of mere academic interest and serves no practical purpose, apart from may be illuminating something about the way you think. now i am not qualified to say this, so please disregard my opinion, but i have a feeling that the more romantic bend of mind would choose to be parallel lines while the practically motivated individuals might say, hey! something is better than nothing, why not meet at least once? :)

which makes very good sense. eternity is a long time, would you not rather spend the first half anticipating this meeting and then the next half reminiscing. variety. that is as strong an argument, if ever there was one.

ahem.

yes, you got me. it's not my choice though. i choose parallel lines and here are my arguments.

1) there is something infinitely romantic about the idea that you and i could have the same inclinations (yes, slope, sick math joke) in life, the same value system, ethics, ideologies and yet since have different goals to intercept (ahhh....) we might not realize how similar we are. we could appear so different, we just might convince others, hell even ourselves, of our inherent differences. and since we never actually meet there would be no risk of us ever clearing up the misunderstandings. see, i find that immensely amusing. ironic even.

2) we could be completely aware of our similarities, and acknowledge that we have different life paths, we are not meeting. period. you would live for eternity, in the comfort that somewhere on this plane is another line / person who thinks just like you do. forever and ever, untiringly, the same. wouldn't that be a source of amazing solace? for eternity, to know, that you are not alone. come on now.... you are telling me you don't have one single romantic bone in your body? shoo, skitter, go, find it. go.

and,

3) this is my favourite argument, in all honesty you are probably not the only two lines on that plane now, are you? so you will actually have a horde of other lines intersecting you incessantly, you might actually grow sick of all the intersection. so i am thinking it might be a respite, to know that there is this one line that has absolutely no intention of intersecting you. ever . someone who likes you enough to just let you be. and then you can look at each other through that constant distance and smile, maybe even roll your eyes once in a while, at all the others constantly meeting or wanting to meet - could be your own private little joke at the world - could be. that ayn rand person when she said all love is exception making, might actually have been on to something. hmm...

wow, that actually sounds somewhat lucid, when i started writing this, i thought it was going to end up being an exercise in complete and unbridled irrationality :D