Five minutes. That’s all I needed. If I had just come five minutes earlier, then maybe things would have been different, but then again, seeing how things have always gone, that might not be true either.

Ever since I was a foal, I’ve always dreamed of finding love, my special somepony, my soulmate, whatever you wanna call it. My parents were always supportive of my dream, as any good parent would be, but they were also honest with me from the very beginning.

“If you want somepony to like you, you need to be somepony worth wanting,” my father told me, which, to be honest was sort of a culture shock to any colt who grew up believing that everypony was destined to end up with somepony. I had always kinda believed that all I had to do was be myself and that the universe would just magically bestow somepony unto me, and for the most part, that’s what I was told would happen growing up. My father, though, gave me directions that nopony else had given me, something that would change my life forever.

He told me that nopony has a soulmate, and if I wanted to meet somepony that I would eventually get to call my wife, I would have to work on myself before I asked anypony to marry me. Sure, being yourself might be important to some ponies, but can you honestly say that that’s enough if nopony likes who you naturally are? What if “being yourself” means you’re a jerk to everypony? What if that’s just how your personality naturally developed? I can only speak for myself, but I don’t believe that you should settle for anything less than your best self, even if that means changing who you are just a little bit.

I got my cutie mark shortly after I made it my goal to dedicate myself to finding love, but ironically, I didn’t get my cutie mark for actually making anypony fall in love with me. The first girl I had a crush on was named Sapphire Shores, and she was the most desirable filly I had ever met up to that point. I knew how much she liked music and how much she wanted to be a pop star when she grew up, so I decided to write her a love song, which just happened to become my special talent. Sapphire Shores never ended up returning my feelings, but from there, at least I knew I had a path for where I wanted to take things.

Not much later, I grew a crush on a girl named Circus Tamer, but the main problem here was that she wasn’t into music, especially not love songs. She focused more on amazing ponies through spectacular feats of tightrope-walking, jumping through flaming hoops, acrobatics, you name it, just so long as it was visually astounding. If I wanted to catch her eye, I would have to learn to become more relatable, and so with all the death-defying stunt ideas off the table, I instead learned how to juggle three balls at once. She was pretty impressed at first, but then she met a guy whose special talent was plate-spinning on a unicycle with stilts. I never stood a chance.

Finally, I met a mare by the name of High Style, who was an assistant for the big time fashion designer Photo Finish doing hair and makeup. At the time, my mane was in a ponytail, which was all the rage back then, but this new girl had an eye for only the newest styles which would be two steps ahead of al the current trends. Naturally, I decided to change my manestyle, looking through all the fashion magazines that High Style liked until I found an option with silky bangs and white highlights. The first time I saw myself after my next manecut, I couldn’t believe that the pony staring at me from the mirror was actually me! I was the full package!

The next day, I showed up while she was at work, flaunting and flipping my mane to show off how nice it looked, but that’s when she said the phrase that every guy hates hearing: “I have a boyfriend.” Yes, I had come out of the hairstylist a different pony, but I still felt like I went through all that effort for nothing. Here I was, doing my part to make myself a better option as a bachelor, but I was being outcompeted by other stallions that I stood no chance against again! I was tired of competing! I just wanted to have the same chance as everypony else! Which… is when I ran into her.

Her name was Starlight Glimmer. She told me that she was part of a village where everypony was the same, that nopony was superior to the other, where everypony lived with smiles on their faces. In all my years of courtship, all I had ever known was heartbreak, and when somepony offers you a chance to change all that and have a new start, it wasn’t exactly easy to say no.

From there, I gave up my cutie mark, became part of the town and joined everypony with a smile on my face, just like Starlight Glimmer had said. There were times when I missed my cutie mark, especially since I had used my talent in writing songs to help me get through my toughest moments, but I knew that Starlight was right in saying that it was false pride that would only lead to me feeling superior to somepony else. I had achieved my dream in the sense that I had nopony to compete with me in finding love, but what I hadn’t realized was that with everypony being the exact same, there weren’t any mares that stood out any more than anypony else. The only solace I had in living there at all was that at least here, even if I would probably never end up finding my special somepony, I was still in a place where we all lived in harmony… or at least that’s what I thought.

A few months after I had arrived, Starlight Glimmer was snuffed out for keeping her cutie mark and lying to the whole village about it, despite all she had told us about how cutie marks made enemies, not friends. After that, she left the village and everypony got their cutie marks back, which meant that now, all the mares who were just blank slates before were popping out as beautiful angels that I had never even noticed. The most beautiful and impressive out of all those ponies, however, was named Sugar Belle, and she was the sweetest, most beautiful mare that I had ever seen.

I didn’t waste any time pulling out all the stops, writing her poetry, juggling three balls at once, flipping my mane, throwing out witty one-liners, you name it. I was utilizing everything I had ever learned to make this pony see just how much she meant to me and how hard I had tried my whole life just to find somepony as special as her, and it seemed like it was working! I felt like I had finally found the mare of my dreams!

...Then he showed up…

Some outsider by the name of Big Mac came rolling in from a place called Ponyville delivering apples so that Sugar Belle could improve the variety in her bakery. It started out with basic small-talk with Big Mac not saying much other than “eeyup” or “nope” here and there, but pretty soon, he was coming to visit her a lot more frequently, all the way up to five times in one week! I didn’t want to admit that I was scared, but I needed Sugar Belle to see how great I was before I ended up losing to the hot new guy from out of town.

Luckily for me, he had spent most of his attempts to impress Sugar Belle doing crazy things, like stealing her bags or trying to make out with her while she was sleeping, but he just wouldn’t stop! Finally, my boys and I decided that we were going to settle this once and for all with a private concert, but before we got the chance, we found out that he got there first! At that point, I had completely forgotten about Sugar Belle’s feelings and spent the whole time just trying to outcompete Big Mac before he stole her away from me. Needless to say, it ended with the Sugar Belle being mad at the both of us, and I felt terrible about it.

The next day, I waited for her to get back home, and as soon as she walked through her doors, I would pop out in the streets with a song where I would apologize for everything and finally patch things up between us, but again, Big Mac beat me to it. He had broken into her house when she wasn't home and made her a new display case where she could show off all her desserts, something that she thought was the sweetest thing in the world, and just like that, I had lost again.

Five minutes. All he needed to do was wait five more minutes. I lost the mare of my dreams, my special somepony, my soulmate, to a stallion who had spent far less time with her, all because I couldn’t get there just five minutes earlier…

And now... she’s gone forever...

Author's Note

On the sixth day of Feather Bangs, Princess Cadence gave to me:

Six measures singing, five minutes late, four special mares, three new skills, two contenders, and a heart break he didn't foresee.