Strangers.

You know what’s the greatest thing about dating? By dating I mean an activity where you meet someone who has not known you for too long and too much to be considered incestuous. This isn’t friends-turned-to-lovers. The Greeks used to word Storge for that, a love that arises out of similarity and familiarity. This is different.

You’re meeting strangers: that’s the best part. The less they know about your past and your little biosphere, the better. It simplifies things. The weight of history can be condensed into bite-sized pieces – cleaned of the messy entrails – if requested. No real mutual friends to speak of. Nothing. as if you’re given a clean slate to start over.

It’s also like improvisation in theatre because it happens in real time. You construct your own persona with the bits that you have on hand and the image they want to see. Do it convincingly enough and you stop knowing when they’re real or putting up a show: thus, suspending disbelief. We all want to put on our best dress. We all want to be liked. We like to be liked.

Call it a performance art. It is not the same as ‘pretend’ because it’s made of something real albeit embellished or toned down: depending on how you want to play it. Construct little idyllic images of ForeverAfter supplied by the tinsel of Hollywood. Come closer, pull back, let go. Lather, rinse, repeat.

For once, you can be you: the newest edited version that you want to be. Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said:

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Isn’t this a masquerade?

It’s not love, my dear, don’t get them mixed up. That will require open vulnerability. A mask is the opposite of that. It’s a shield. Choose your weapons: candle lit dinners, roses and walks by the beach. They’re nice things, really. When it boils down to a tried-and-true formula to get a girl’s heart’s racing then surely somewhere we’ve missed the point. They’re just a stage for you to play the role of a boy and I for the girl in the heterosexual script society have constructed for us to follow. Tease me, woo me and I am in your arms by midnight. Isn’t that what you want?

Yet as much as people like to be liked, we like to be loved. We hope for the happenstance of meeting someone who is not only physically attracted to you but also captivates you intellectually, emotionally and heck, spiritually if you must. It seems like it would require so many different things from us. It complicates things because love as we know it requires us to come closer to the surface of our skin. It’s a lot easier with friends, convenient in fact, because i suppose some relationships did not begin with a tangible end in mind.

It is rare to find someone who are on the same wavelength. I’m not referring to whether they are on the same band for the SAT verbal score although i’m sure it correlates. The word that’s close to describing this is idiolect: the unique way in which an individual chooses to string his or her words together. I guess what I mean to say is that I am a sucker for eloquence, a certain kind of idiolect. In my adventures, I’ve accumulated enough as friends. They like me. I like them.

So what would I do with a stranger?

I get bored easily, I guess, and you’re an entertainment. But I can find strange things to do just as quickly on my own because I’m just odd that way. Doing this isn’t and have never been my main hobby (world domination is top of the list). I’m already constructing a semblance of A Summer Plan and frankly my dear I  don’t have much time.

Even so with a stranger, you can indulge in your fantasy: I am The Girl – dressed as a lady, you are The Boy – composed as a gentleman. In our make-believe, the sum of our imagination is worth more than the sum of our parts. Let’s pretend this is real and this will last. You know an ending is in order: it’s just a matter of time.

Pull back , let go and come closer.

This can be a lot of fun.