Nobody actually wants you know you.

by Danielle Cross

People don't want to know you. They want to describe you.

There's a difference.

Knowing takes time. Describing takes three words at a dinner party.

So we start handing out the three words. Easygoing. Successful. Fine. Whatever fits in the space someone's actually willing to give us.

James Sexton said something that's been sitting with me. Relationships end the same way we go bankrupt. Very slowly, then all at once.

Nobody notices the first omission. The question that didn't get asked. The version of yourself you quietly stopped bringing because it was easier not to.

You don't notice the second one either. Or the tenth.

Then one day you're standing across from someone you've known for years and they feel like a stranger, and you can't point to the moment it happened, because it never happened all at once.

It's not just relationships. It's you too.

You go quiet in the same way. Small edits. A softer opinion here. A feeling you didn't mention there. All in the name of being easy. Being fine. Being simple enough that nobody has to work to understand you.

And one day you go looking for yourself under all of it and you're not entirely sure what's still actually you.

That's the part nobody warns you about. You can lose yourself the same quiet way you lose someone else. Reasonably. One small convenient edit at a time.

DX