I Never Knew You

When people talk about love at first sight, I have no experience to cite except my experience with you. I don’t think that I loved you even then, and yet I still remember that day. I saw you playing the piano and suddenly everything was different. In an instant you became the person I wanted to be; the loud, fast, funny, sweet, understanding, talented person I had never in my life met, or even dreamed of meeting.

I wanted to tell you, sort of, in the time that followed. I wanted to tell you that you changed me but I knew better.

When I started to talk to you it changed. I wasn’t sad that it changed, not really. But you became something different; less of an ideal and more of a person. I started to realize that you were not miles above me. You had things to say, and I had things to say too. I thought I might be interesting to you, and even change your mind about things, if you would listen. But you didn’t want to listen.

It’s not that you aren’t a great person. I’m sure you are. It’s just that I don’t really think about you much anymore, because you could never live up to my ideals. You were the Daisy to my Gatsby dreams. It sounds like such a terrible thing to say, doesn’t it? I was neglecting to see you as a real, honest-to-God human being because it’s what I needed at the time. I needed you, or at the very least I needed what I believed you were.

You should know that I’m not usually like this. I don’t usually fall in love with ideas. Usually, I fall in love with people. I love them for their faults and quirks, not just that pristine shiny exterior. Sometimes I love people for a very long time. For a year, or two, or six. Sometimes they love me back. But you? You never loved me back. And now you rarely pass through my mind, and when you do I don’t feel much. If anything I laugh to myself. I don’t miss you, because I can’t. I never knew you.

I knew somebody. He was tall and handsome. He played the acoustic guitar, which as we know, has a direct correlation to sensitivity. He was smart and funny, and liked to talk and to think. He was hard-working and reasonable, comfortable… perfect. He was as real as Robert Plant, Finny from A Separate Peace or Jim from the Office. But he wasn’t you. He wasn’t anyone.

Please don’t think you let me down. It’s not that. It’s just that the person I thought you were is not the person you are. It’s the person I want to be.