...but in a good way: Itai's latest journal entry articulates a lot of thoughts that I've had myself almost exactly. I've also given a lot of thought to the necessary criteria that my prospective mate must match, and I've also done the back-of-the-envelope calculations to realize how the slice of humanity that these criteria leave for me is vanishingly small. Now when I meet a person on my first try that successfully meets every important criterion, and who is also seeking the exact same improbable things in his mate, is it a merely some sort of analog to the anthropic principle at work, or is it a miracle?

The occurrence does seem a bit less shocking when you remember that finding a marriage partner is far from a purely random process. Humans aren't idealized gas molecules who only bump into each other by accident as they bounce around in a vacuum flask. By putting ourselves into the right situations, by filtering out all the wrong options so smoothly and swiftly and automatically, we raise the chances of success out of the abyss of the infinitesimal.

But this sort of reasoning does little to deflate my amazement at the synchronicity of me and Itai finding each other right after the first Rosh HaShanna/Yom Kippur in which I finally let my whole heart sing the prayer that it's been yearning but forbidden to sing since I first learned how to pray. It's powerful evidence that someone is listening.

In any case, I don't think anyone can deny that when you find the one-in-a-billion person that meets your impossible specifications (and who even makes you feel sweetness inside), you don't let go without making a tremedous effort to give it the chance to work.

You know, I hope Itai can handle when I get all Vulcan like this, because it's not such an infrequent event! :)