(image: Amanda Mason)
“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days–three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.” – John Keats
I suppose what Keats is saying here is what I think a lot of people say: You discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. Or maybe that was just Plato. Either way, this is just John Keats more eloquent version of the saying, but in regards to love.
I can say firsthand, that you can definitely learn a lot about a person in a few hours than in years of knowing them. This especially holds true when you just met the person. Often times, those few hours with that person are like the greatest hours ever spent with them. Sometimes, you meet a person never to see them ever again, which only enhances how amazing those few hours were. So, not only were those hours fantastic, but they will forevermore epitomize that person in your mind.
I suppose that makes it easy for one to romantize that person. Especially if you were attracted to them when you first met them. Most times when I have experienced this, I was in some way attracted to the person I just met. It all seems a bit unrequited, yet not, since you don’t know for sure if that person didn’t like you the way you liked them. But then you can’t really ever find out for sure whether or not it could of went anywhere, because that was the only time you ever spent with that person. Maybe you both felt the same way but were too scared to say anything? Or maybe you both had a feeling–just a feeling–but didn’t act upon it?
And about not ever seeing each other ever again. It seems so convenient. I mean, sometimes you do see each other again and become good friends and whatnot. But for the most part, once you say goodbye the first time, the world finds it in its power to never have you two meet again. Maybe you never exchanged contact details, or maybe you did but you lost it? So you wait for the other person to contact you first. But what if that person doesn’t contact you? What if they misplaced your contact details and were waiting on you?
It’s just so interesting how these misconnections seem to happen, especially when those few hours were some of the best ever.