Having a somewhat romantic disposition, I used to indulge in the following fantasy, in my former, bachelor years, when my passion for philosophy and science left little room for a long term relationship:
"Suppose I fall in love sometime in the future, and meet the girl of my dreams. If that indeed happens, then she is alive today somewhere, going about her everyday life, oblivious to the fact that we're going to be together, and the fact that I'm thinking about her at this very moment." I indulged in the fact that I could think of her before we even met.
But was I really thinking of her, or merely about a set of people who merely satisfied the predicate 'my next girlfriend'? This is analogous to thinking about the winner of a race before it has started. But it was difficult for me to accept that I'm merely thinking about a potential person, given that she already existed. Surely it wasn't determined who she is (going to be), before we actually met, and therefore at the time of my romantic deliberations. But such speculations aside, surely the predicate picks out a single person, although it can be said to apply to a number of potential candidates, as it were. At least the romantic mind tends to folly in this manner (I am thinking about her) where cold reason suggests otherwise (I am thinking about a set of potential the ones).
However, presently when I say to her "I thought about you before we met" it seems to be true, because now we know that it would actually be her. This is truly romantic! If so, then we have logically validated, or at least salvaged some of the reality underlying my spells of romantic imagination! And at the same time, it is also true that in some sense I was thinking about her before I met her.
