PIECES OF CONVERSATIONS, PART 2

YOU
Thank you for so many words and the attractive picture they paint of someone I am delighting to get to know better. Your writing is very passionate and delightful to read. I find the thought of you wonderfully exciting. I love the intensity of your words and the diversity of your vocabulary.

I used the word “phantasm” in my last mail and I think we must be alert to the phantasmagorical character of our dialogue. Much more than in real life, the other person that we know here is a construct of our imagination. In a Platonic sense we are each consorting with our Idealisation of the other and that is profoundly seductive.

We are building a conception of the other from a few words and a very few images. I fear that though my words are sincere and my images current the real me is still a different animal from your mental image of me.

Having said all that, my image of you is also compelling. I am with you in recognising that love, if it cannot always conquer all, certainly ignores all boundaries. And between us there are some important boundaries to ignore.

I loved what you wrote about dogma and politics; both because we share attitudes and because it's good to learn that you are as passionate in the social sphere as you are in those of romance and sexuality. Just sharing the evoked emotions is very pleasant.

I'm glad you liked the love analogy. It struck a chord with me because it explains the intensity of the emotion. No one should marry if they don't have that extreme intensity of need for union with their partner, I think.

I hope we can talk more and try to anchor our idealisations with more reality.

ME
i note with great respect and insight your "phantasmagoric" notion about our exchanges - our, as you say, consorting to our personal Idealisms.

granted.

but, i find that our dialogue opens windows to the heart and mind of the other. if it does knock more on the rational and logical sense in the way that we are given permission to create and recreate an imagery of each other through words - then i’m glad that in the few exchanges we've had, i have created in my head a you that i like to continue to carouse with in the celebration of the moment.

i sense a bit of trepidation about marriage. and rightly so. the legal union and all the strings attached to it cannot consecrate the wedding of the mind and spirit. while marriage is binding as far as the law is concerned, man has done ways to make it null and void through the same law that sanctifies it anyway. and isn't that sad?

we cannot know someone completely - even our very own selves - given a lifetime. and so even in partnership, a marriage for instance, you go through it convincing yourself that you absolutely know the other person, but in fact, deep down your guts, you are certain that he or she is a stranger waiting to be discovered still, little by little. but that is the excitement of a relationship. the unearthing of an individual right before your very eyes. bear in mind, however, that your reaction to your discoveries become either your blessing or your curse.

having said that, it does not hurt to give one's best foot forward. there has to be a certain standard with which we measure our every encounter.

but i think it is stupid to expect perfection.
when love cannot conquer all, loving for the moment is good enough.