Letter To A Friend

Personal relationships are so very hard to manage. Without intention or design you sometimes wind up on the bad side of someone you had hoped to like, and whom you thought might like you back. The failure of that connection is a cause for disappointment and even anger.

Part of the problem is that relationships are complex. Seldom are they about what we pretend they are about. Have you ever been in a relationship with a man hoping that it would become something more, but it never did become something more? You maintained that the two of you were “just good friends.” You suggested to others that this was your only ambition, but deep down you knew this wasn't true.

Then one day you found out that he’d been sharing the company of someone else, someone you knew, and suddenly you hated him. How was that sudden hatred explained? You told your friends that he was stupid, or a Democrat, or that he was too forward, or that he was unkind, or that he lied to you. Take your pick.

The one thing you’d never say is that you loved him intensely and that he never loved you back. The cosmic unfairness of that was more than you could stand, so you decided to hate him in self defense.

So it is with most of our relationships. They meet a need that we choose not to share with others. Often we don’t even fully understand the reasons for those relationships in our own moments of careful reflection. They are a combination of mysterious chemistry, and the near absence of logic.

Eventually we get hurt in some unexpected way. Or perhaps we are reminded of our own detestable flaw by seeing it in someone we care deeply about. Then we lash out in the most destructive way.

I once heard that perfect understanding would entail perfect forgiveness. The older I get the more I believe that is true. If someone you care about turns against you over an issue that seems trivial, or an issue that wilts in the face of logical argument, be sure that this issue is not the source of your problem. There is something you don’t understand, and just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean that the other person isn't hurting for good reason.

A cold hearted grievance is seldom the source of human estrangement. Anger is more often caused by something exquisite, something to yearn for, and something denied.