Communication

How is it, do you suppose, that we cannot communicate with those we love the best?

So there you are, madly in love with someone new. This isn't just a physical lusty thing, it's a true meeting of minds, and you can talk about anything and everything. Your nights are spent together in a dizzying whirl of lust and deep, meaningful, philosophical conversation. This isn't just chatting, it's real communication, and this person is obviously the person with whom you're going to spend the rest of your life.

All is fabulous until the day you make that little throwaway comment which makes your new and exciting partner look at you as if you've just bitten the head off a puppy. And not just any puppy - this was their favourite puppy whilst growing up - the one they played with and walked every single day until the beast died in their arms of old age. That puppy. The one they mourned with a passion abated only by your very own arrival in their lives, with your complete, utter and perfect connection to them.

And just so that you never have to see that look of total disappointment on their wonderful face again, you tuck away inside, that little part of you which made you say that oh-so-hurtful thing, and a tiny part of you dies just a little bit.

The sad thing is that this goes on, every year brings another look from the puppy face, and in time, the perfect communication you shared during those long, hot, passionate nights is a whisper of a memory, replaced by small talk of those subjects you know, from long experience, don't elicit that bittersweet expression.

And then comes the melancholy day that your flawless love, for whom you killed such a lot of your own personality, moves on, because they are no longer able to communicate with you. But they've found someone new, and this time it's perfect. Again.