Afraid to be Read

I remembering going out with someone, where just about everything I was attracted to about her, she was terrified and anxious about. It was a weird abrupt sort of relationship. One that I sometimes reflect back on and still feel puzzled about. 

For example, I felt attracted to her because she liked to read. But after we began going out, I soon realized that for her, reading was something she did alone and didn't talk about it with others. None of her friends would read for fun and so she became incredibly anxious when I would want to talk to her about what she was reading and what I was reading. 

She loved when I picked out books for her and gave them to her, thinking about what I felt she might enjoy reading, given the places she was at in her life. But she wouldn't talk to me about what she was reading and she would shut down if I tried to talk to her. For me, I love books and love reading, and I read things I never talk to anyone about and read things that I love to talk to others about. 

I eventually realized, that part of it was her own issues of reading, loving reading, but not feeling comfortable with herself and her identity. Feeling that in relation to others she was supposed to talk about certain things, drink alcohol and be mindless. She was smart in some ways, but socially afraid to be smart, since it would put her at odds with her peer group. 

What made her even more fascinating was that this happened with just about everything that drew me to her. There was a number of things that I felt we could connect and bond over, and slowly but surely for each of them, she retreated and couldn't adapt to being with someone and still being able to enjoy the things she had passion for or were just parts of her identity. 

Eventually I got so frustrated with her, I would tell her, your friends aren't here, no one is judging you, it is just us and you don't have to worry about being true to some identity you project. You just have to be here with me. And I know that joy of reading is a part of who you are, and it is for me to. So why don't we just embrace it? We don't have to tell anyone or post about it on Facebook. Needless to say, that didn't work. It just made things worse, since for someone who was so obvious in her idiosyncrasies, and so obvious in her behavior, she hated the feeling of being "read" or being figured out. But that what was, at the end of it all, so ridiculous about the whole thing. She was desperate to be seen and heard by others, desperate to figure out who she was, but would panic the more and more I seemed to figure her out and respond to the her that I was drawn to. 

I try not to think of her as being stupid, but her behavior certainly was. 

I find myself more and more thinking back on relationships lately, and some of the strange people that I've shared my life with. The insane games that people play when they are afraid to live their lives, afraid to share their lives and so on.