it's very simple: the more time you spend with someone, the less you have to talk about with them. because generally what you talk about are the external stories, the interesting situations, and so on. what you don't have in common. okay, maybe it's not absolute; going through situations together allows you to share your contrasting takes on them later, for instance. but in 90% of human relationships, that's what's going on, even if the best 10% might not conform to this law.
and people, of course, seem more interesting the less time you spend with them. because when you do see them, they have more stories about their lives. like i wrote about before in relation to tv and movies, you only see the interesting parts. you hear 20 stories in two hours, not in the six intervening months.
possibly the other fundamental paradox of life is that you're drawn to people by what their lives not including you are like. and if the person becomes part of your life, then necessarily their life is going to change. i guess this is why it's so easy to make activitial friends, because when you're doing something it just fits into their lifestyle. but when you're married to someone, this isn't the case, their lifestyle is going to be vastly different.
on an unrelated note, the blog is clearly dying. it is obvious that my output is not of the same caliber as it used to be. traipsing around the web recently, i noticed that my friend susan's blog is also dying, that she has penned its epitaph: it's become an obligation to her. i don't really feel the same way, but by now i definitely get the sense that i'm writing for a public instead of just being me. and i love my life right now, i love who i am right now, and i don't need the escapism or the transcendence into objectivity. meanwhile i got another message today from someone irked at the fact that because i mentioned her full name (since censored) i come up in a google search for her, and my love's mother is miffed that i haven't yet mentioned her on my blog.
i have to admit that when i started this, part of the point was so that people would read it and get to know me and maybe like what they see and maybe i'd have a new friend. and so when i met people they could google me and find it and maybe i'd become an active image in their life. but this last month, two months, hasn't really been me. it's been some going-through-the-motions subset -- as if i'm actively trying to display my qualities and in trying fail miserably at conveying the me behind all those qualities. i feel like i'm writing for a deadline, which produces okay stuff (i can churn out words in my sleep), but hardly me.
all of which is a way of saying i'm probably going to back off for a long while. i'm going through a little adjustment in my life, simplifying it -- i no longer care at all about sports for instance. my instinct during these periods is to tear everything down and see what grows back, and i think this blog will be one of the casualties.