Between The Squiggles

Day 13 of writing-something-random-just-to-see-if-I-can-do-it-without-getting-self-conscious

It is hard, isn’t it, to be friends with someone you like?

You usually think it’s no big deal – you can keep engaging with them as long as you stay detached from your expectations. But ever wondered why that’s so hard?

We’re heralded as the most sentient beings on the planet, yet nothing highlights the irony of that more than our inability to remain emotionally detached from someone who doesn’t like us back. Then again, we’re also the same species that eats junk food thinking it won’t catch up to us. A moment on the lips, forever on the hips. A moment of hope, then months trying to cope.

It is probably because closure is hard to see.

Why do you keep binge-eating junk food even though you know it’s bad for you? Because the damage isn’t immediate. Your body doesn’t fall apart in real time; you don’t gain weight the minute you eat something. So when you can’t see the consequences, you convince yourself they don’t exist.

The same thing happens when we try to detach from someone we like. Each small gesture — a casual “hi,” a shared laugh, them offering you a ride home — feels like proof they might feel the same. It feeds the bias. You may not see proof of interest, but you also don’t see a lack of it.

And you know what people do when they can’t see something, but still want to believe in it?

They turn to faith.

Faith that maybe the feelings are just hidden – not missing. Faith that maybe, like God, love doesn’t need to be seen to be real.

(In Gen Z’s slang, we call that being “delulu”).