To be loved is to be known

and i want to be known

The other night, at a bar somewhere in Highland Park, she ordered me a Mexican Coke and a hot dog while I went out to find seats. I came back, disappointed to see that there was hardly any room for the two of us to sit. Before I could tell her the mildly bad news, she turned to me and said, “I ordered for you.”

“Already?” I asked, having only been gone maybe a minute, surprised that she was able to flag down one of the bartenders in that time.

“Yeah,” she said. “Mexican Coke and a glizzy, right?”

It’s stupid, really, considering we went to that place specifically for hot dogs, but it was the quickness of it, the confidence in what I was going to say in her place, the memory of me drinking that same Coke a month or so prior, the very action of ordering for me. The food arrived, we shared it outside, under the bright green light of the bar’s sign hanging above our heads, close to groups of strangers who talked about classes and relationship drama. Though I listened to her speak, though I shamelessly eavesdropped on the people around us, the idea of being known by someone, and I mean really known, crept up in my mind.

I’ve heard, from where, I don’t remember, that to be loved is to be known. I believe this to be true in all forms of love. Platonic, paternal, romantic, they are all bound together through the act of knowing. Knowing what kinds of movies they like, knowing how they take their coffee, knowing when they are anxious just by looking at their face, knowing when they need a shoulder to lean on, knowing when they need space, when they need a laugh, or when they need a knowing look. Knowing the little intricacies that make a person unique from someone else of the same name is what makes someone special. There are a million Peters, a million Ashleys, a million Sams, but Peter #1 likes to wake up at 7:32 every morning and make himself a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and a little bit of whole milk while Little Miss Sunshine plays in the background. Ashely #4 likes her coffee with half oat milk and half almond milk with a dash of brown sugar and a quick rotation of her cup counter-clockwise. Sam #4234 likes when their partner caresses their belly while humming the tune of some old Damien Rice song in their ear. I like a hot dog, ketchup and mustard, with a Mexican Coke. It’s common, the opposite of special, as general and unspecific as something can be, but it’s still mine, in its own little way. It’s still a part of me, a part of who I am, a part of the many things that I enjoy, and it’s a part that she remembered, and not only that, acted upon. This is all so very hyperbolic, but I tend to overstate the things in life that I love, whether it’s the love of thinking about it, or the love of the thing itself. I feel the most seen when I am known, as, I believe, does anyone.

I didn’t feel this way with other people, though truthfully I didn’t let them see who I really was. Even when I convinced myself that I was in love, it was a sham, a lie, a farce, really. How could I love someone who didn’t love me in the way they truly thought they did? If I am to hide myself from those I deem better than me in just about every way, if I am to look down on myself in the way they would not want me to, there is no knowing, there is no loving, only the illusions of doing so. It’s trickery at its most subtle, and its subtlety is what makes it the most criminal. This was all self-inflicted, of course. No fault of anyone else but myself, I know that now, though I wish I knew it back then.

Years ago, four, maybe five, I wrote a short love story for someone I no longer speak to. I described her as a statue, bold in character and daunting in size, though not intimidating. Welcoming, arms outstretched and a slight movement upwards of the lips, imitating a smile. I tear my gaze away from the statue and onto her, then onto our hands, linked together as they usually were.

You squeeze my hand in an unconscious attempt to never let me go, as if loosening your grip would mean plummeting through a dark hole, out of sight, never out of mind.

I wrote about how she was created, how she was pieced together, “so meticulous, so precise, every limb, every detail carefully planned out and executed with deft and care.” So, as I revisited the story, scanning the page indifferently, knowing that, as I’ve written before, it was infatuation, not love, it was excitement, not love, it was a blissful ignorance as to what love really is, not love itself, I felt a guilt that I am all too familiar with, and a relief that I am not doomed to make the same mistake again.

Like I said before, love doesn’t just mean romance, though romance is, quite frankly, what I want, what I long for to a somewhat irritating degree. Love can be as big or as small as one wants, as one feels, as one interprets. I want to love with my whole heart, I want to give so much because I have so much to give. And so I write this as she sleeps beside me on the couch, a fuzzy pink blanket over her body, rings and makeup still on, knowing that despite my protests, despite my insistence that she go to bed, I would appreciate her company, even if the only sound between us was no sound at all.