The Silent Visage

Monday night was a great conversation, as previously mentioned. It's been a while since I had a good long conversation, where anything goes. I had forgotten the simple joys of uninhibited discourse. I learned a lot, about myself as well as about others. It was odd though. I've had similar conversations before with women and all of them have turned out one of two ways. Either one person or the other has been let down by the revelations of the conversation, or we've ended up making out. I guess this time was an exception. Maybe it was just indifference on one or both of our parts. I feel like it was because I didnt get a reaction as I have in the past. All I got was so much matter-of-factness that I may as well have been talking to a vulcan. lol. I dont think that is a bad thing, it is just intriguing. Never have I been so hopelessly unable to gauge an emotional response when talking about something as blatant as what we thought of each other. Maybe there wasn't one and that's why. But even if a girl I was totally indifferent about said what was said, I would most certainly betray something, even if it was only my indifference. Maybe that's why it was so easy to speak candidly, because I was less afraid of being judged. The initial rush was still there, when the tide of the conversation turned I certainly revelled in the anticipation, but at the moment that is usually the moment of judgement, where you discern the other's true intentions, the emotional level just flatlined as if we were talking about what we had for breakfast. The rest of the conversation was great too, and the second major thing that intrigued me was why it was so easy to talk about all this stuff. I am pretty open about my opinions, but that was the kind of conversation I would have with Lyndz or Trent or Amit. Completley open. Given the length of time that we've been "friends," per se, that was strange. She mentioned that she is an easy person to talk to, but the question is why. I hinted above that it is partially because she seems like she won't judge but I'm not sure that's all of it. It could also have something to do with us being kindred spirits in some sense. For example, her enjoyment of list-making allowed my to freely confess all my normally too-nerdy-to-talk-about list making adventures. Similarly, discovering that she once owned TIE Fighter made me much more able to talk about my sci-fi based nerdiness. Maybe talking about those interests, which I usually moderate except for the sake of humour in normal conversation, established a level of trust more quickly than usual and allowed the free exchange of information to move to other areas. I also think it had something to do with genuinely believing in the confidentiality of the conversation. My usual assumption is that if I say something to someone, usually it will find its way into the domain of general knowledge. There are only a few people with whom I trust information I would rather not have generally known. In this case, even though my gut feeling was not to say some of the things I said, I felt like what I said, even the things that might have been a little mean or off-colour, were in safe hands. I may be proven wrong in the future, but that would just be so..unlike her. I think. As mentioned, she's a tough one to read. I suppose that's another reason why it was such a good conversation. I don't really have a clear sense of who she really is at her core. Over the years I think I've seen a lot of different faces, and so she remains somewhat of an engima. From this angle the conversation was intriguing in the same way as a well-played game of bridge (which I have been trying to teach myself recently). I would play a question, and observe the reaction in an attempt to discern the hand she was holding. It wasn't easy, but that's what made it so fun. Overall the exercise wasn't a success, although there were some hints, her fundamental self still remains a bit of a mystery. It will be a great challenge to continue. I know that will sound strange because I have previously attested to the openness of the conversation, and it may seem paradoxical that I was stymied from this angle. However, the factual openness of the conversation contrasted with, at least on her side, an extremely well-fortified wall defending her emotions and motivations. It wasn't something that could be solved by "Ask me anything." because there wasn't a question that I could have asked, other than, "what are you feeling right now?" which would have been somewhat of a strange thing to say I think. I must confess that one of the ulterior motives of this post is to furthur this line of inquiry. Anyhow...that was the conversation that was monday night. A truly terrific bit of wordsmithing. Hopefully it isn't the last.

The Long Road

This post is supposed to be about long-distance relationships and whether I think they are viable or not. I'm not sure if that's what it's going to end up being about, but that's where I'll start. Having two "homes" for at least the next two years means that unless I end up swearing off women, which is unlikely, that I have a fair chance of ending up in one of these situations. I used to think that long distance relationships were silly and impractical, but since I have gotten to know people who have dealt with said relationships I feel as if I have moderated my position. That said, I still feel like you should never enter into any sort of long-distance thing without a certain commitment. People often say that for long-distance to be viable, some substantial groundwork has to already have been laid in the relationship. I don't entirely agree with that, in the sense that you have to have been dating for a long time. Obviously you can't decide when you fall for someone, that's up to fate. I think that the prerequisite for a long-distance relationship is mutual willingness to commit to the timeframe. You don't have a LDR for it's own sake, the idea is that at some point it will no longer be an LDR. For example, if I were to start dating a girl now, we would both have to be quite sure that we would be willing to date the other person for a minimum of 9 months, plus some time to actually reap the fruit next summer. I think it is difficult for people to internally commmit to a lengthy time frame such as that on short notice, but it certainly isn't infeasable. Larissa and I were only good friends for two months or so before summer, and should the opportunity have been afforded me then, I would have been willing to commit for quite a length of time. In that particular case I knew after only a couple weeks. I think cases like that are rare, and it is rarer still for it to be reciprocated, but my point is that the time you know someone beforehand is not as important of a factor as some might think. As in any relationship, the key to an LDR is trust. It is even more of a key in that case. LDR's will not work unless both the people have complete trust in the other's fidelity. This, I have observed, is the downfall of many LDR's. The second key factor is communication. In an LDR, communication is key to maintainting a strong bond. Probably 90% of the LDR's I have observed have either succeeded(to this point), or failed bacause of one of those two factors. I guess my conclusion here is that in my case, for the next two years, if I find myself in a potential LDR, 100% trust and 100% communication have to be deal-breakers. They both are already important and are in the top 10 on the test, but there is a difference between the levels of trust and communication I would normally require and the 100% that I believe is neccesary to an LDR. Speaking of communication, I had a great conversation yesterday which I feel derserves some words, but since it is on a totally different topic, I feel like it needs its own post. Maybe I'll do two posts in one day (woah) or maybe I'll wait till tomorrow. We'll see if work picks up here. Plus I have to think of a good title. Coming up with post titles that encompass the content is one of my favorite parts of blogging. The next post will need a good one.