Accepting Vagueness

When I was a young lad, I always had a problem with knowing where I stood with regards to my friends. Sometimes they didn’t know I existed (literally), other times they were the ones that were imaginary.

I was always trying to find certainty. I would say, “I don’t care if you love me or hate me, so long as I feel the same and realize it.”

At least that was the general gist of it…

… except for the ‘don’t care’ and ‘hate’ parts.

Anyway, I would always try to force clarity in my relationships. Nothing was worse in my eyes than not knowing how to act when I saw somebody (after all, human interaction isn’t in my nature. I’m a textual beast).

Some time ago, I tried to make something clear that was best left in vagueness. It was responsible for an abrupt shift in a relationship of mine. It was in reconciling the aftermath of the event that I realized what the problem was.

I am a male. As a male, there’s a biological drive towards women (or so I understand, I’ve never felt it myself. More than anything it’s a slow idle or a push). In this society, a man and a woman cannot be ‘just friends‘ without there being some stigma or nudging from their acquaintances. (here’s a fun projekt: hold hands with a friend of yours of the opposite sex for one day. See if you can make it 24 hours without anybody commenting. After that, try groping each other for one day.)

I fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker. I thought “any guy would do what I did,” never realizing that that wasn’t the point. The point isn’t certainty, for if people can hardly be classified, what are the chances that relationships can be?

No, the Platonic Friendship scale and the Erotic Relationship scale are vague measures and should be treated as such. They’re idealized forms of the world. Attempting to force all your relationships into those labels will leave you with far fewer relationships. Trust me, I know.

It was when I realized the disjunction between my innate drive to label people and relationships and the actual state of affairs in the world that I decided to stop worrying and love the vagueness.

I accept vagueness now. I need not know who people are or who I think they are, I need not know what they feel towards me or what I feel towards them, I need not clarify trivial misunderstandings, and I need not ask for more information when it is not provided.

Life is vague

… well, sort of.

When I was a young lad, I always had a problem with knowing where I stood with regards to my friends. Sometimes they didn’t know I existed (literally), other times they were the ones that were imaginary. I was always trying to find certainty. I would say, “I don’t care if you love me or…