New Things, Old Things, and Nothing
While sitting in the coffee shop tonight reading Children of God, I observed a young woman get up from her table and go to talk to a man at another table. It was pretty clear from the conversion that they didn't really know each other - or else only knew each other very casually - and were generally telling each other about themselves, and asking about the other. I wondered idly what pretext she'd used to meet him, but it occurred to me that maybe she didn't use one. Who knows (not me). It's pretty much something beyond my experience.
Getting to know someone early on is perhaps the best part of a relationship. Learning what you have in common, how you're different from each other, things about the other person that are quite different from yourself but which are compelling and attractive. It's really quite exhilarating, particularly when you actually go out and do things together which are a little outside your experience. One of those, for me, was starting to go to state parks when I was dating my last girlfriend: taking long drives together, and then walking along paths in the wood.
Of course, sexual intimacy opens up whole new vistas to learn about each other, but really I think it's the same sort of thing. I'm not sure that sexual intimacy is really any different from emotional or even intellectual intimacy, although our culture treats it that way. On the other hand, I personally am not comfortable sleeping with someone until we've been dating for a while; just the way my psyche works, I guess. (I think this gave one girlfriend of mine fits, at first.)
That sort of mutual learning can't really go on at that pace forever - unless each person is endlessly fascinated by every minute detail of the other person's life. Eventually things seem to settle down into the "What did you do today?" routine as the main sort of exchange. Basically, things slow down because there isn't enough fuel to keep them going that fast for that long. It can certainly be a drag on occasion.
(Linda McCartney died yesterday. The radio reported that in all their years of marriage, she and Paul had been together every night save one. That seems simply incredible to me. Just amazing.)
It's been quite a long time since I've had any of those experiences - either the exhilaration or the mundanity. That's kind of a drag, too. I have a friend who says that he's on record as saying that humanity is a boil on his ass. I'm certainly not like that, but sometimes it seems like it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
|
|
|
|
