…He asks me. For the third, fourth, maybe even fifth time in the span of just a few brief hours.
I look around the room absentmindedly as if critically examining everything – and anything! – that comes into view. I scramble through my head, wondering what to say – or do? – in order to buy a little time.
We were involved in a game that allowed us to deny as long as possible all involvement in its process, a game whose principle rule states that it should be played as though it were not being played, both parties proceeding as though unaware of its existence. We spoke a language that used ordinary words but gave them new meanings, exploiting the tension between coded and ordinary signification.
I can feel his eyes on me. Is he trying to read my mind? A sense of panic starts to spread over my entire body. I figet nervously. I try to direct my thoughts elsewhere – just in case – he actually navigates his way into my head.
Finally I offer up a response. “Nothing,” I say, as I smile at him, ever so slightly, still attempting to mask the spiderweb of everything but nothing in mind.
This has to acceptable. After all, I think to myself, I was just moments ago looking aimlessly around the room as if I was a lost child. And at least this is different from my last response to the same question, which consisted of a short and simple, “I don’t know.”
But, crazy as it sounds, the truth is, I really don’t know what I’m thinking. As soon as I identify one thought, another pops in my head as a rebuttal to the first.
I suffocated on question marks, symbols of the mind’s attempt to understand the chaos: “Why me? Why this? Why now?” I scoured the past to look for origins, omens, offenses, anything that might count as a reason for the unreason that surrounded me…a pattern I might superimpose on the random dots and dashes of my life.
And so we continue the game. Each expertly pretending as if it wasn’t being played. Each doing everything and anything in our power to prevent from acknowledging what is so obviously taking place. Yes, it seems crazy. But the nonsense kind of makes sense. And it’s fun. At least for right now…
I recognized that things needed to remain unsaid. The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.
So yes, for right now, this works for us – or me, rather. Just as I haven’t really told him what I’m thinking, he hasn’t really told me what he’s thinking. And quite honestly, I’m not sure if I even want to know. That information could be dangerous, it could change everything. And besides, what’s wrong with prolonging the delightful, almost addictive, uncertainty?
The above quotes are taken from the fantastic novel, On Love, by Alain de Botton. A truly fascinating read that I recommend to anyone interested in the way people fall in love and in lust.
