Weakness

I have a significant weakness for certain aspects of an individual's personality. They take on the form of the same outlets I use for emotional release: music and writing. That isn't to say I'm not moved by the other interests, passions, and loves that help to comprise a person ... I'm just most easily swayed by those two.

As I've discussed before, there is something deeply personal for me about sharing the music that moves a person most intensely. It's a direct reflection of my own love of the art form and the effect it has on me. I'm usually pretty open about sharing my love of certain songs or artists. Like everything else I feel, my reactions are pinned directly to my sleeve for all to see. When someone else can do the same and offer me insight into their own musical loves, then, I begin to feel connected to them in a way I don't feel with others. I come to feel that I know them on a level below the surface, closer to where their emotions really lie.

Looking across my past, this theory is pretty easy to trace. The friends I've had the strongest relationships with have always been found through music, either as fellow players, marchers, or listeners. Among the romantic relationships and interests I've had, regardless of their length and intensity, the same pattern is clear. I've felt most strongly attached to those women with whom I was able to connect on a deeper musical level. Other factors obviously came into play, but in general this theory holds across the last 8 years without question.

Aside: have a really been dating people for 8 years? Holy crap.

More recently I've come to appreciate writing as a form of personal expression, probably within the last 3 years or so. Since then it's become a consistent outlet for me, even when I find myself unable to write in an articulate or thought-forming way. Being able to read the personal writings of others has since come to have a similar effect on the way I view and connect with an individual. From the most superficial blathering about a bad day to the most heartrending confession, all writing reveals something about the writer. And it's once again that revelation, that sharing, that lets me feel so much more in tune with someone.

I guess the most important thing I can take away from this line of thinking is that whomever I become involved with in the future, for now or forever, I would hope that music and writing could become an intrinsic part of the relationship we share. I know now how vastly influential and positive those connections are for me. I have no worries about artistic connections in friendship. I've always been drawn to fellow musicians as friends. It's just something to keep in mind romantically because musical or written connection seems to be the thing that transcends the usual machinations I throw up in self-defense. I can be very good at keeping others out, intentionally or otherwise; this might be a way to let them in on mutual terms.

And besides- is there anything more frightening, exciting, dangerous, or intimate than driving around listening to music in the darkness, or reading your most secret thoughts aloud to someone?

Perhaps ... but the list seems pretty short.

Happy Sunday.