Sometimes, only a few people’s lives may be compared to relationships. The rest resemble a train station.
How’s that?
You have a metaphorical stop within yourself that’s a kind of internal pause or something that is always doing quiet loops within you.
Then, with no awareness on your part, it gradually becomes a platform… Where people come, stay for a moment and then go.
The so called Train Station Theory is not an actual formal academic theory.
It’s a metaphor used in relationships which, in essence, is a very concise and handy lens that people have created to bring things out, which are clear to all of us but rarely articulated:
At times, those who come into your life do not really enter as people.
On the contrary, they enter as trains.
Some of them depart rapidly.
Some are even willing to open their doors but somehow you just can’t board.
It might seem like some are actually meant to be yours, only when the last call signal is given, you find out that you’re not going anywhere with them.
Some might even do it in such a secret and almost invisible way that you are never quite sure even if you met them at all.
And, of course, you are haunted every day by that question…
Why has it got to be in this way?
This article is not in the intention of selling to you comfort.
It is meant to provide you with a higher level of understanding.
The relationships
Individuals are raised with identical romantic lies:
If he/she is the one then the relationship will be flawless.
It won’t.
In fact, even if the right person does exist, rightness by itself is not enough to keep a relationship going. The reason for this is that a relationship is not only influenced by the character of one individual.
Most of the time, the actual driver behind the love stories is far less poetic and much more down to earth:
Time.
And time is nothing romantic at all.
This is the point the metaphorical train station comes up with the strongest impact.
Sometimes you name your station as your loneliness. At other moments, it may be exhaustion. And sometimes it’s rebirth. In some occasions it is ‘I really need to look after myself,’ while in other times your station could be ‘Okay, my heart is ready to love again.’
A train (representing a person) pulls up at your station.
When you see the person, something stirs in your heart/mind. You come to the conclusion that this time things are going to be different.
What your mind will do is, The mind will try to convince you that maybe this time everything is going to work out.
Train Station Theory expresses a harsh truth in simple terms:
Meeting someone doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re destined to be together.
Meeting is sharing the same platform. Being in a relationship is going in the same direction.
Isn’t that what real love is all about? The whole point is that two individuals stop completely separating!
They might be in love too.
They might be laughing together.
They might be able to communicate for hours.
They might even be able to miss each other.
They might, on top of it all, feel that magnetic attraction.
And yet, despite all that… Love breaks down.
The point is not that love has died it’s just that one person is ready to stay while another wants to leave.
One doesn’t mind that their world is being built, whereas the other is still uncertain about themselves.
One considers love as a safe place.
The other sees it as a means of escape.
And what is the outcome?
You think that it’s us.
He or she thinks that it’s me.
You envisage the tomorrow.
They rather say we’ll see.
You want to know what’s really going on.
They are just calling their running away going with the flow.
At some point, you understand that the train you thought was coming…
… Was just a transfer.
A station is busy for a reason: everybody is waiting for something,
but not everybody is waiting for the same thing.
Some people don’t come for love.
Their appearance gives the impression that they are the ones who can handle love.
They speak the language fluently.
They know how to express their thoughts deeply.
They know what to say.
They however, lack the ability to be the ones at the forefront when it comes to the nature of the responsibility of true intimacy.
This extended metaphor has one sentence which is a hit:
People don’t always leave because they don’t love you.
Rather, they leave because they are not equipped.
And sometimes that is the most difficult to swallow fact:
It’s possible for someone to come to your station past the point of…
…And yet, they might never be the ones to live with you.
Psychological
Let’s delve further.
It’s because the station is not only about the trains outside of you.
The station is also the system within you.
Some individuals have their station continuously open.
The doors never close.
Announcements never stop.
Every arrival is the loudest sound in their chest.
Why?
Some people remain in a platform state emotionally they are perpetually waiting for something.
They are always looking forward to the arrival of something.
They are constantly in need of someone coming… Explaining… Holding… Completing…
Yet the comparison with the station, from a psychological perspective, reveals a more acute point:
Waiting can serve as a shelter.
Because once the train starts moving, it means a change of life.
And change is not always pleasant.
Sometimes I’m not ready is an authentic statement.
However, sometimes I’m not ready is just a nicer way of saying:
I don’t want to take risks.
The station is like a security bubble.
That is why you can go to the station and say to yourself, I could actually go if I wanted to.
The station gives you a feeling of control:
If I decide, I’ll get on.
But some people have to face the truth that:
They secretly don’t want to get on the train.
They only want the train to appear.
They only want to feel chosen.
They only want someone who can make them feel worthy.
And that’s how a thing might start to resemble a relationship without really being one.
You empty yourself to someone who just appeared.
When they leave you, you end up in your emptiness again.
That is not love.
That is a cycle.
Train Station Theory tells us the following psychologically:
Don’t label every train that arrives as destiny.
There are some which merely come to heal your wound.
Yeah, that’s the ugly truth.
Some people show up as love, but they serve a different purpose:
They bring forth your old rejection.
They make you seek approval.
They reopen your I’m not good enough story.
That train doesn’t move you onward.
It merely lets you off at the same station where you have been stuck for years.
If you call that fate, then you will be the one who is eternally waiting on the same platform.
Philosophy
And here comes the most intelligent part of this comparison.
A station is not just a metaphor for feelings.
A station is also the moment now.
Philosophy poses the question that is the deepest subject of our internal struggle:
When life is just a series of arrivals and departures…
how does free will even exist?
The Train Station Theory does not idealize fate in any way. Nor does it totally reject it. It simply puts it on the scales.
It goes on to say:
There are a few trains which come without your permission.
But you usually have the freedom to pick whichever train you want.
It sounds really easy, right? But it is very very philosophical.
Because most of the time people only have two options in their mind:
* They think that they don’t have a choice, therefore they accept their whole life as destiny.
* Or they think that they have control over all things, therefore they are always blaming themselves for every bad result.
The station analogy fixes both cases.
Of course, some trains are not on your schedule.
It’s impossible to always know who’s coming and when.
It’s impossible to always understand their face, their attitude, their goal, their sense of time.
But what really hits you is this:
You’re in charge of your station.
Who you come to, who you wait for, who you leave an empty seat for.
Who you let stay.
Who you let into your life again.
That is where your freedom to decide lies.
And life real life is never a succession of destiny-changing moments.
It is made of such things as:
Small actions.
Repeated actions.
Disregarded actions.
Never more! change of attitude that later becomes Okay, just one more time.
Keeping someone in one’s life is not always because of love.
It could be simply by habit.
Sometimes we are not able to let someone because it is not always about passion.
It may be that addiction was disguised as love.
And this particular metaphor can be compared to a clean cut, sharp blade:
Whichever train you decide to worship, the ones you really need to see will simply pass by.
Because every train is a direction.
And every direction creates a totally different life.
. . . . . .
Train Station Theory is not something you turn to for breakup consolation.
It’s more an eye opener.
Its very idea is to communicate this:
Some people come just because it’s a necessity turn.
Others decide to walk away because they know if they stay, they will be shrunk.
And some people only stop to impart one lesson to you:
You have to decide who you are waiting for other than yourself.
The most grown up gesture here is like this:
Don’t wait for a train that is never gonna come.
Also, don’t go blindly worshipping a train just because it leaves you.
Well, it’s not always the case that life shows you a missed opportunity, actually.
Sometimes life tells you:
You really got away with it.
Let’s just focus on one question here just one:
Which emotion is your train station fueled with nowadays?
And who have you been thusly… Inviting into that emotion?