Psychophant's Rants
13.12.07
Agape
In a moment, the time required to read three lines of text, I finally accepted that I had lost a friend, for ever. A close one.
Close friends are a different kind from best friends, though they may be superposed, a bit, by our own desires.
There are several problems which are specific of close friends.
Often you are so close and meet each other often, that it is difficult in those conditions to notice small changes or variations, as the day to day changes are so small that they escape attention.
For communication, once you have shared all your secrets, it is hard to top it, so there is a sudden lack of communications, as you cannot share worldshaking confidences every day. The nonverbal channels are still strong, but if somehow those channels fail, through distance for example, the rusted verbal customs may fail.
But the worst problem, in my experience, is that once you get so close to somebody else it seems impossible to get back to a reasonable distance. Though that applies usually to former lovers, I have found also to my chagrin that it applies also to non-sexual deep relationships, both friends and family.
Later you meet again, by chance, and all the complicity returns briefly, driven by the shared experiences, and for a while it is as if time had rolled back. However the intervening years, and the original cause for the strangement, conspire to make the return short lived.
I cannot say how it is for others, but I am unable to return to the middle zone. Emotionally I cannot divest myself of the previous situation. Others seem to feel similarly.
This is however wishful thinking, as it is most likely we will not meet again. That is the problem with high intensity relationship, the high maintenance and heavy fallout when they fail. Emotional, physical and social fallout.
The more sudden, the more it hurts, but the less bitterness. I must be pretty oblivious, as I am always caught blindsided. Except when I am the one that breaks and runs. ¶ 12:33 AM
In a moment, the time required to read three lines of text, I finally accepted that I had lost a friend, for ever. A close one.
Close friends are a different kind from best friends, though they may be superposed, a bit, by our own desires.
There are several problems which are specific of close friends.
Often you are so close and meet each other often, that it is difficult in those conditions to notice small changes or variations, as the day to day changes are so small that they escape attention.
For communication, once you have shared all your secrets, it is hard to top it, so there is a sudden lack of communications, as you cannot share worldshaking confidences every day. The nonverbal channels are still strong, but if somehow those channels fail, through distance for example, the rusted verbal customs may fail.
But the worst problem, in my experience, is that once you get so close to somebody else it seems impossible to get back to a reasonable distance. Though that applies usually to former lovers, I have found also to my chagrin that it applies also to non-sexual deep relationships, both friends and family.
Later you meet again, by chance, and all the complicity returns briefly, driven by the shared experiences, and for a while it is as if time had rolled back. However the intervening years, and the original cause for the strangement, conspire to make the return short lived.
I cannot say how it is for others, but I am unable to return to the middle zone. Emotionally I cannot divest myself of the previous situation. Others seem to feel similarly.
This is however wishful thinking, as it is most likely we will not meet again. That is the problem with high intensity relationship, the high maintenance and heavy fallout when they fail. Emotional, physical and social fallout.
The more sudden, the more it hurts, but the less bitterness. I must be pretty oblivious, as I am always caught blindsided. Except when I am the one that breaks and runs. ¶ 12:33 AM
