In this series: #1 | #1.5
This morning, I dreamt of one of them again.
We were at a chalet gathering, composed such that it seemed that I had organised a party on a whim merely to celebrate people important to me.
He stood out — of course he did — and when he made his entrance, my friends looked at him wryly, as if he was not one of us.
He was… insouciant, that’s the word. Nobody moved to accommodate him, yet he took his place in the middle of the circle as naturally as a king glides to his throne. I actively continued flittering in social butterfly mode, but I couldn’t help sneaking a look at him occasionally.
I might have kept looking in his direction because I was hoping there would be a moment when he would be looking back, having been waiting all this time to ensnare me.
All it would have taken was a single moment, a single intention, and a single action.
But it didn’t matter because I was his from the start, and I knew that he knew it.
Inevitably, he turned his attention to me as the night went on; perhaps that was his purpose all along as a character in my story. He was flirtatious to a fault, his manner careless; he acted like he wanted more, but he was a bad actor — all his declarations rang empty.
In spite of it all, I was getting carried away — until I caught myself, whereupon the dream ended.
As I lay staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of my dream, I realised that I had portrayed him in a unidimensional manner. That wasn’t necessarily on me: after all, I could only work with what he had decided to show me in the limited time we had together.
I am inclined to believe that he, like everyone else, is a complex creature. Our circles are deeply interconnected, much as I’d prefer otherwise (a drawback of sourcing your prospects from outside dating apps — it gets complicated). And when your circles overlap, you hear stories. When you hear stories, you come to conclusions.
My conclusion was that there was a lot more under his surface worth uncovering, even as his flaws seemed destined to prevent me from doing so.
But might I be being too kind to him to assume that he was more than what he seemed? His appeal was precisely his inaccessibility — he was a blank canvas on which I could project whatever I wanted.
I’ll admit that writing this post is an admission of desire — an example not accounted for in my theory of interpersonal interest. So, it is worth adding the caveat because I understand only now: to be interested in someone does not mean you ultimately want them in your life.
No matter how many dreams I have or how many love letters I write to you.
And yet — simply because we were not meant to be doesn’t mean I didn’t love you.
Or, at least, whatever I knew of you.
baby g’s diary 