Forever Young

"Who's your unicorn?" my friend asked. I had no idea what he was talking about but I loved it already. I mean, "unicorn" is my stock answer for everything. Catchphrase answers, Win Lose or Draw guesses, chaotic basketball plays, trivia shots in the dark, anything. When in doubt, say "unicorn!" with emphasis. Works for me.

But what my friend was asking about was who my romantic unicorn was. Under his particular definition, your romantic unicorn is that guy/girl you idealize and chase but won't (ever) get. I mean, okay, maybe you get her, but most likely not. Recently we just had a pair of friends in town and they were each other's unicorns and now they're happily married. That's like just too rare an occurrence to even throw into the theory though. When two people have essentially loved each other since high school and waited for each other, that's not something you should lump into anything else except to call it by their own names.

Anyway, another way to rephrase the unicorn question is "Who's your Winnie Cooper?" That will immediately illuminate what you're driving at when you say it to someone from that era. Everyone knows who their Winnie Cooper is. The person within your sphere of life, one who you might even interact with regularly, but is always out of touch and unattainable. It's supposed to be painful a bit.

I think having someone be your unicorn implies that you hold them on a pedestal. And you need to feel inferior (at least initially) so that you think to yourself, "They're so awesome, why would they even like me?" And if you ever got that unicorn, if you had her in your life for just enough time, she would solve all your problems.

Also, I think there should only be one unicorn per person. I mean, that just makes sense. You can't have a lot of them, otherwise they're just big ass crushes or unrequited loves. Boring.

Here's the thing actually. In asking this question, people have interpreted it differently. I initially thought my friend was asking me who/what my ideal was. I mean, that was where my brain naturally took the idea of a unicorn. A mythological creature that may or may not exist, and only shows himself to the purest of the pure, equated in my mind with your ideal romantic partner.

But it was more interesting to talk about a unicorn as per my friend's definition. With the parameters being someone who actually exists, someone that you maybe had a way outside chance with, and someone that you'll always hold in your heart just a little bit. Or maybe it can also be seen as the one that got away. You saw the unicorn once in the forest and now you always keep an eye out for him but to no avail.

So, upon further review, I think it's important to let anyone set up the parameters for what their unicorn is, since it's kind of an individual thing right? Think about who your unicorn is and then tell me all about it.

Totally unrelated but look at this zebra-corn. I want one of these.