To be clear, this is an entirely fictional and hypothetical scenario.
As a deeply pragmatic individual, who lives and dies by things only that are real and not imagined, it is my greatest strength to consider all possibilities in any given situation in which all facts are not decidedly known. Some might call this "the benefit of the doubt,” but I have no doubt, only considerations. It might actually be more accurate to say that I have only doubts, considering that such considerations are often at odds. I find it quite entertaining to entertain completely opposite realities as being equally plausible. This way of living may or may not induce tremendous pain in me, but I have yet to find a way out of this kind of living, though I have tried (though perhaps not hard enough).
Say for example, you were to send a handwritten love letter in the mail to someone confessing your love to them. Some people might tell you that this is a romantic gesture. But as with Schrödinger's cat, this gesture can be understood not at all. It could be romantic, or (more likely in my opinion) it is merely the transfer of information utilizing one of our founding father’s most beloved institutions that often goes underutilized (that being the United States Postal Service for which we are all deeply indebted to Benjamin Franklin).
You might alternatively consider this gesture to be the work of an absolutely insane lunatic. No human person in their right mind would ever think to confess their true feelings to someone else, let alone in debatably illegible writing. Especially when the receiving party has muddied the waters by doing exactly as people do: sending terribly mixed signals (for four months). As a true human being, they have no choice in the matter but to have behaved this way. Except when you consider the possibilities of free will. Must man behave in terribly confusing and contradictory fashions? Or could it just be possible for us to have evolved into creatures capable of true clarity of feeling? And that those feelings might be translatable into words or even actions? Preposterous. Unless…
Unless there is some element of clarity that has been lost on me. It is certainly possible that I have missed something to consider. It is equally possible that the error in miscommunication was not an error by the sender of signals, but by the receiver. Am I to consider myself so blind? It is certainly just as likely. My father has always liked the phrase “are you picking up what I’m putting down?” Perhaps what this former lover put down is not the same thing I picked up. Perhaps what I put down is not what they picked up. If they would only reply to my letter, I might have a chance to know. But who’s to say that even then these muddy waters would become clear?
In all the weeks I’ve waited for reply (it’s been eleven, embarrassingly), I’ve considered Schrödinger's cat. Benjamin Franklin’s great vision of the United States Postal Service has not always been perfectly realized. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Such idealism, and yet I wonder... Did my letter not make it? Did their reply get lost? Or worse yet, they have not replied at all. Perhaps they never will.
It would be overly romantic to entertain a feeling of hope in this position. It serves me only to consider all the possibilities. Though I do wish I could choose the emotional experience I’d like to be having while I wait. It would be wonderful to choose an experience of total emotional neutrality until the reality can somehow be known. But that is rather idealistic, which I am not (as far as I know). I would say there is not an ounce of romanticism in me, but that would not be a full consideration of the possibilities. There may be corners of my heart which I have yet to spend enough time with to know whether or not I could possibly be a romantic person. Perhaps much like the cat, it is equally possible that at this very moment I, simultaneously, am and am not all of the following things: deeply pragmatic, deeply romantic, completely unfazed, and entirely heartbroken.
For clarity, I did not exactly write the words plainly “I love you,” in this letter. I admit to fearing the unknowable truth of how such a confession, in debatably illegible handwriting, might be considered by the receiver of my letter. Perhaps the most pragmatic thing would have been to say it outright in plain words, but they might have mistaken me for an absolutely insane lunatic. Or they might consider me frighteningly romantic, putting pen to paper like that and being so bold as to be plain.
(For clarity, and this is simply and inarguably cliche, this person is unlike anyone I’ve ever known before. Considering the possibilities of them feels more impossible than a usual prediction of people. All the considerations I’ve considered before are based on data amassed from interactions with the hoards of regular people out there. I’m encountering what I believe to be an unusually unique person. The only prediction model I might even consider considering would be fed from data collected only from myself. Unfortunately, if I were to run the model with what I know of myself, I’d be able only to consider all the possibilities. All I might come up with is that they are as confused as I am.)
I have avoided the mailbox for some time. The cat may or may not be in there. It is equally true and possible only up until the moment I open the squeaky little door, and find the lonely junk mail that keeps our hardworking people of the United States Postal Service heartily employed.