She was crying. Her friend, in the window seat to her right, seemed unconcerned. I wondered whether I should remain unconcerned too, or at least give the impression of a lack of concern. I had started to feel overwhelmed by the problems of others and the problems of the world more generally. The plane was still sat on the tarmac at Dubai. The seven hour journey to Manchester had yet to begin.
Asking if the young woman was okay seemed a reasonable thing to do. The question invited an answer, but a short one. She answered that she was nervous about the flight. I said that I understood. An announcement over the plane's public address system stopped the conversation going further. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against the seat in front of her, as though in prayer.
About half of the way to Manchester, I started to think about the previous few weeks. The visit to see my girlfriend of the time had been different. The trip to Ilocos Norte, with her family, had accounted for some of that difference. There had been a general feeling, however, that things weren't the same between us. A lunch meeting with two of her work colleagues had felt tense, as though they felt uneasy in my presence. On a previous visit, they had been more friendly and less awkward.
During my stay in the Philippines, I hadn't mentioned the increasing number of pictures I had noticed on social media, of my girlfriend with the male colleague with whom she had a car sharing agreement. I considered how few photos she had taken of the two of us in nearly ten years of being together.
I decided to look at the pictures I had taken on this last visit. When I got to a photo taken in the grounds of the hotel in Currimao, a voice beside me said "Wow! Beautiful place!" The conversation continued with the places to which she had travelled and where she would like to go again. She asked if the woman in some of the photos was my girlfriend and I confirmed this. She talked about her desire to visit the Philippines one day herself. I gave her some advice on where to go if she ever did get to the Philippines.
I introduced myself. She introduced herself too. Her name was Chen Haoyan, which she told me was a boy's name. Her parents, she said, had done little to hide their disappointment that their only child had been a daughter. Being unfamiliar with the naming conventions of her culture, I chose to accept what she said as true. She had, apparently, been to visit her family, after the unhappy occasion of her grandmother's death. She apologised for her earlier tears, saying that she was usually unafraid of air travel, but leaving her family this time had made her unusually anxious. The loss of her grandmother had focused her attention on the mortality of her parents.
Yorkshire felt strange to her. Unable to afford accommodation closer to the university at which she studied, she had taken residence in a relatively small town. She didn't know how she would approach the local community and thought that they didn't know how to approach her either. Apart from a few passing greetings, there had been little interaction. She said she had never felt so lonely before.
I considered her appearance. She was quite tall and slim, conservatively dressed, with her long hair tied back and thick-rimmed glasses completing the image of an archetypal introvert. To the people in her small adopted town in Yorkshire, she probably didn't seem particularly approachable.
Something I had noticed in my work was that those who had tended to lock away their emotions struggled the most through the process of grief. Suddenly, they were confronted with this other, emotional version of themselves. Grief can lead us to examine who we are, and this is especially true when we find ourselves changed by the loss. I wondered whether, had she not suffered a recent loss, Chen Haoyan would have talked to me like she had.
I rarely talk openly about my religious or spiritual beliefs. Such things are hardly welcome in this day and age. I often feel that there is a message, something to be learned, in the things that happen to us. Meeting Chen Haoyan felt like one of those moments. After arriving in Manchester, waiting for my train, I saw her and her friend at the station. They walked past me, either not noticing me or pretending not to notice me. That felt like another message - another lesson to be learned.
Two months later, the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK. I didn't know if or when I would see my girlfriend again. Within the space of a few months, it became clear that I would never see her again. The daily video calls became increasingly one-sided, with her giving one word replies to most of what I said. Carrying the conversation wasn't an easy task for me, and she knew it. Eventually, text communication largely replaced video calls, depriving us of context for each other's words and creating misunderstandings. We had one last video call, in which she said she didn't know if she wanted to speak to me again. At one time, in what seemed like the dim and distant past, she had said that her day didn't seem complete unless she got to talk to me.
The lesson I saw in the breakdown of the relationship was that love was stupid. I could only see a lonely future stretching out before me. The thought scared me, but I had lost hope that it would be any different. Joining an online dating service was my way of challenging God, the universe or fate to prove me wrong. I had been wrong, of course.
On my way back from a recent visit to see my current girlfriend, a series of accidents saw me take a different flight than the one I intended to take. After landing in Manchester, I saw a familiar face in the train station. It wasn't until I sat down on the train, and she sat a few seats behind, that I remembered her name. It was Chen Haoyan. I thought about talking to her, but ultimately chose not to make the approach. A few weeks later, a problem surfaced in my current relationship which threatened to bring it to an end.
As mentioned earlier, my spiritual beliefs include a conviction that there is a guiding hand behind many things that happen, and there is a message or lesson for us to hold on to. I don't know what God, the universe or fate is trying to tell me about Chen Haoyan. I just hope that my lack of awareness doesn't cost me another relationship.
