All For A Story

Lately, I have wondered whether I should treat dating as a real, possible, feasible thing. If I am honest, a lot of my life and interactions feel oriented toward becoming an anecdote, blog, poem, or whatever else sometime in the future. It is similar to going out hiking or to see some marvel, and although you do technically experience it, you are really just living life through the lens of your camera. Your own eyes hardly touch the moment as you fill yourself with preoccupations about the quality of the interaction for later visual feasting by yourself and others on social media.

There is, perhaps, a level of intimacy lost when your interactions with another human are focused in this way. Suddenly, past mistakes and vulnerabilities are discussed not for more intimate knowledge of a person, but rather for shock value, or to expose another side of you specifically for the sake of the other party being exposed to such, rather than removing a layer of your own social facade.

I do not know that my perspective on this apparent loss of intimacy is necessarily a real issue. In my head, I hear echoes of think pieces describing what is wrong with such and such young people dating in America.

I suppose that I should remain with the method I know best, since it furthers my own inconsequential brand and makes me feel more comfortable. It is just that when I interact with someone who has no call to be interested in someone like myself, I do tend to ask whether this is all a part of the poisonous lack of intimacy that would lead to my own parents' divorce. Perhaps it is normal for my brand of humor, and I am simply being overly analytical. Is this why people go to therapy?