Non-Intimate Intimacy

"Writing can be understood and misunderstood in many ways. In most cases the author is not the right authority to decide on where the reader ceases to understand and the misunderstanding begins. Many an author has found readers to whom his work seemed more lucid than it was to himself." -- Hermann Hesse

I hope only for lucidity on one of our parts. If that wish is granted, let misunderstandings fall where they may. It is the times when I realize that neither of us have been lucid that I still cannot seem to appreciate.

And I find that with some people there is a diffusive filter between us, and that we can hold whole conversations with neither of us realizing we misunderstand what's being talked about because we've missed an important piece of information in the beginning -- perhaps something as simple as mishearing a name or a date or location. And conversation slows down not all, despite the fact that we are, and have been, discussing two different things. The moment our mistake is realized, though, there is such a cold shock. A realization that all of your words have gone into a void and that there was no point to having said them.

I do not find such filters to be a bar to friendship, per se, but they create a surreal state of intimate non-intimacy that I am not able to enjoy at this stage in my life.