A little too prosaic

[mousme]

I sometimes wonder if I didn't break somewhere along the way, in an undefinable fashion. Either that, or I've got the heart of a romantic with the brain of a pragmatist.

I've never felt the whole love thing the way other people seem to. I don't get it. I am able to love, I know this, and I do feel things deeply, but I've never had that whole "If-you're-not-near-me-I-can't-breathe" thing. The people I love don't occupy all my waking thoughts. In fact, I can go for several days without thinking of them at all, except for the occasional fond moment, when I think: "Gosh, I bet [$Person] would get a kick out of this!"

Some of my friends have been saying things like it feels as though they've known each other forever, and they can't remember when they really met, and very nice things like that. It sounds nice, it truly does. I pretty much remember the times when I met all of my friends: first meetings are important to me, and so they stick in my mind.

As a corollary to this, a lot of my friends act around me as though we've been friends much longer than they have. They'll refer to things that happened years and years ago, when I wasn't even in the picture. It feels a little weird to tell them: "Actually, we weren't friends when that happened. I wasn't there." They are always surprised that I haven't been around forever.

I don't know why I have this mental disconnect: no one else seems to experience this, or if they do they never let on. I think I may have been raised to be a little too prosaic in my everyday dealings: True Love is great, but it happens in stories and to other people. Eternal Friendship? Same deal. Magical Abilities? Ditto.

Most of the time I'm happy to be a Muggle, and to simply smile and nod and be supportive of all my friends who seem to have this extra knowledge hanging around, but there are times when... I dunno, I get a bit wistful. Sometimes, I think it would be nice if I didn't have to work as hard to actually connect with people, if it could just come a little more naturally.

Comments

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

I don't feel that 'OMG can't breathe if you're not near me' thing (in fact what I feel is often more of a 'OMG I can't breathe if you ARE near me I love you now please go away'), and I think a lot of the Twue Wuv thing is an unconscious working up of something to make it seem like it fills a bigger hole in someone's life than it actually does. I too go days and days, often months, without contacting close friends, but when we do meet again we can just pick up where we left off.

It takes a *lot* for me to be close friends with someone. I'm fairly certain most of my friends think they're much closer to me than they actually are. So when I do meet someone with whom I don't have to go through the song and dance thing (the 'working hard to connect' thing you mention), when there's some sort of click, it's comfortable, and we slip right away into the 'feels like I known you forever' thing. But that's very, very rare for me. I can think of maybe three people it's happened with, and one of them ended up being my husband.

I think more of us are like you than you suspect.

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, am I bugging you with that viewpoint? If I am, I'm sorry.

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

If you're referring to me: No, no, no. If you were I'd have told you. If you're referring to Phnee: I can't help you. :)

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to be one of the *people who think they're much closer to me than they actually are* and be bugging you. I didn't think I was. But this comment made me doubt a bit.