I’ve spent hours of my life waiting for it to turn 11:11 to make a wish. Many of these wishes have been contradictory. I’ve wished for a message back, and I’ve wished for them to leave me alone; I’ve spent hours keeping track of my crush of the month’s (read: week) snapscore, meanwhile he’s spent hours leaving me on delivered. All of these things have been a sign, in one way or another, not least of all, a sign of my desperation and eagerness.

“Saying your skin broke out when he ghosted you, which ‘means’ he is necessary to your health, sounds more than a little insane to anyone listening”

The thing about a sign is you can see them anywhere. Like a road sign displaying ‘STOP’ in big bold letters on a bright red metal octagon, they’re universally found and understood, even if we often sometimes choose not to understand them. You can interpret them to mean anything (if the road sign clearly says stop, it’s probably wise to do that, though). I’ve seen signs I thought were telling me to stay, even when the best thing to do was always to go. Relying on signs to do or say something is a messy road that leads to poor life choices and nobody to blame, because saying your skin broke out when he ghosted you, which ‘means’ he is necessary to your health, sounds more than a little insane to anyone listening.

You shouldn’t just stop looking for signs, you should also stop making signs happen (spoiler: if you made it happen, it no longer counts as a sign). They’re not going to happen. Walking around Sidge all day, even though your lecture finished at 10am, just to catch a glimpse of your crush doesn’t mean anything. You don’t get to say to your friends at 6pm dinner: “Guess who I saw today, it’s a sign.” It’s also not a sign if you naturally bump into an old flame or an old friend, terms or even years later, especially if it’s in Cambridge; the city is small enough that it is hardly a surprise you saw them in the Café Nero line, and it’s even smaller in the student bubble of those who reside between the hill colleges and Downing site. Of course you’re bound to run into somebody at some point. Even the counterclaim that not seeing them after ending things is a sign you were never meant to be is a load of shite. Sometimes, they have no friends and never go out, while you are a charismatic extrovert who always deserved better.

I don’t mean to sound judgemental at all! I’ve always been someone who looks for signs in anything I could, making them wherever I could, to suit any given situation I could. I’ve taken the song that plays when someone messages me as a sign because the song happens to reflect the exact situation I’m in with that person. Alas, there are levels to this delusion. It’s even more delusional when you consider that the song in question is one that I actively added to a playlist, alongside another 27 fitting songs, entitled ‘situationship’, with the playlist photo being a relatable Camfess. Not my finest moment, I’ll admit, so please don’t go stalking my Spotify account. But, this is the exact opposite of the behaviour you ought to emulate! I’ve also thought having the same breed of dog as someone to be a sign, but the only thing it was a sign for was to get off Hinge.

That’s not to say that signs have no value whatsoever. I find comfort in the idea that when a white feather lands on you, it means someone is thinking of you. I also have my own ‘squirrel days’: if I see a squirrel in the college gardens before leaving for my lectures, it means it’s going to be a good day. It doesn’t matter if I’ve had three hours sleep post-essay crisis, it’ll be a good day. But that’s not because I saw a squirrel; it’s because I’ve actively decided to find the good in the days I see squirrels (which just so happens to be every day in Medwards).

“Universally known signs only have the meaning you give them”

Even universally known signs only have the meaning you give them. For most people above the age of 40, seeing a lone magpie is an incoming sign of sorrow, with a pair of magpies said to signify joy. For me, however, one magpie or eleven magpies don’t signify my chances of winning the lottery (though my friends hit the jackpot with me), but instead they signal where I live, Newcastle, land of the magpies. This is a sign that I’m never too far from home.

This is your sign to stop looking for those signs, or don’t. Take it as a sign, or don’t, to take comfort in your ways of understanding, or at least trying to make sense of the universe. But either way, it’s a sign (or at least a mixed signal).

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