It strikes me. How little we actually know each other. What our likes are. How we feel about subtle things. What makes us laugh. What we find amusing. What smells bring memories. What tastes wake passions. Who we are. Beyond the social surface level.

I want to know all of it. Because I’m a knowledge junky. I crave information, context, feelings, hopes, nightmares. I want to see. To know.

But I resign myself to quarter truths and half knowing. Because that level of intimacy is daunting. The conversations we have in our minds. Things we want to say but don’t. Letting it pass by. Each moment lost.

Deep truths wake deep truths shared in others. I’ve done it. Seen it. Less with men than women. There is a cultural divide there which transcends generational shifts. As more people show public face due to a life being lived in the exposure of the internet, their deeper selves are buried deeper. Shared with a bare few. Isolating us further.

Where we’ll land, as to stable norms, is still being established. But it seems we establish more surface relationships. More treacherous parasocial relationships. With few bedrock ties. Leaving us more socially and emotionally vulnerable. And not the good kind of vulnerable.

It’s interesting at a remove. But living within such structures while desiring deep connections, is a recipe for pain. That dull ache of without.