Unlike

Due to the certain degree of harmless guilt associated with narcissism and for the fear of dying alone with black cats on an arm chair, I couldn't restrain my affections for the one who was me. But he was too much me, staring at him felt like looking into the mirror. And anyway, nobody likes the mirror for long. Does she.

Nothing, absolutely nothing else makes two people more alike than sharing the same insecurities. That makes those two one from within. When the deep set fears seem to freeze, there are a dozen common fatalities to blame. The chemistry must have begun right there.

In retrospect, it occurs to me that the thing that scared me the most about him was that he knew me. That he knew exactly what I was so wary of. My well kept secrets were out there, right in front of his eyes. It ceased to matter that I too knew his secrets. Which, then of course, became our secrets. That should be kept from every third person. Just in between the two of us. But the burden of those secrets shrank my shoulders.

Sometimes loving him felt like narcissism. Sometimes, it felt beneath me. Like a last resort. Must have been the most carnal need to look for a dissimilar set of qualities in a mate, because our minds like to diversify. Stretch beyond who we have been. I left him. 

3 comments:

Syed Ali Hamid said...

Oh yes, looking into one's self is enough pain in he neck, and to suffer another one alike is a little too much; you did the most sensible thing.

Ankur said...

You make a very interesting point.
I am not really an authority on it, but I feel it's quite impossible to love someone who has seen you at your most vulnerable, who knows your deepest fears and insecurities, who has seen you unmasked !!
Like you so fittingly said, looking at such a person, will be like staring into a mirror and seeing your fractured and fragmented self reflected - How can you possibly love that ?

Neha said...

@Ankur - i beg to disagree with you. She is talking abt sum1 who shares the same insecurities and who is very much alike her..and not the one whom she had been unmasked or vulnerable to... There is a thin line difference between the two persons..
The latter one is nothing like your mirror-image..as she puts it.

Nevertheless, a good read! :)