the value of hiding

last june or so, i discovered that one of the things i wanted very most was to be understood, so i started to lower my shield, just a little.  which turned out to be a good thing.  i hope i didn't unveil too much before realizing the value of a veil, though.  i don't think i did.

if you're a guy, and you wonder why girls sometimes "play games" with you, i'll tell you why.  it's because they want to know how much you want them.  how much you will fight to win them over.  (maybe that's common knowledge already, but whatever.  this has nothing to do with my point.  it's only another analogy.)

with other relationships, it's the same thing.  at least for me.  here's what i mean:  i know that someone (of either gender) really wants to know me for who i really am if they are willing to dig down deep and fight through all that other garbage that i put on as a mask.  it's also the same reason that poets cover what they're actually trying to say in layers and layers of metaphoric language: so that the reader has to learn it by figuring it out for himself.  (that's also part of the reason i started blogging, since few people know about it, and fewer actually read it.  but those who do want to.)

sometimes explaining the meaning of something defeats the whole purpose of it, because the explainee did not have to do their own work to understand what i was trying to say.

but sometimes i just want to blurt everything out to someone who knows me really well.  no masks, no metaphors, no veil.  that's really hard when i know that anyone i could tell would either a) not understand, or b) be affected by it too much.