The Itch of Familiarity.

Society would have us believe that humans are genetically programmed to seek companionship. Our happiness, they warn, will amount to nothing if not shared with that treasured circle of kindred spirits. All that self-serving pseudo-philosophy about meaningful relationships and emotional co-dependency sounds fine and dandy, but the real question that almost always goes unanswered is this.

How close is too close?

Would you share relationship woes with a person, for instance? Or a bank account? Or how about recounting that one time you got hammered at an office party and made out with the boss’ fiancé? Once the little nuggets of personal information start spilling out, just where do you draw the line? Sure, you may think nothing of an innocuous confession about that wild child phase in college, but before you know it, you’re sobbing on the living room couch, spilling your guts (and a glass of sherry) over the murder fantasies you’ve secretly entertained about your half-sister Eunice. If that hypothesis makes you cringe, imagine the plight of those on the receiving end of it.

Humans as a race are notorious for overestimating their capacity to handle the truth about others, never mind about themselves. It’s easy to romanticise the idea of getting to know someone inside out while riding on the wave of indulgence that a new acquaintanceship brings with itself, but sooner or later, the novelty wears off, the quirks fail to intrigue until all you’re left with is the musty aftertaste of a dull familiarity.

Frieda Lawrence deemed this the “terrible gift of nearness”. I, in my admittedly limited perspective, call it the Too Much Information Syndrome. The narcissists of our social network generation are so driven by the urgency to share every last titbit of their delicious selves that the very concept of gradual discovery is all but extinct.  In a virtual space, at least, one still has the option of unsubscribing from candid confessions, but when forced into the close quarters of an actual relationship, it becomes twice as hard to find new means of escape.

But why, you may ask with a faint frown, shouldn’t you share with the people who care? By all means, share away! Once you’ve realised that the person in question is a deeply flawed human being and not the demigod you’d fancied them to be, you can finally focus on working together to conjure your own bubble of mutual bliss. Textbook guide to a happy ending, am I right?

It’s not that easy.

Once you’ve seen a person in the unforgiving light of raw honesty, there is no escaping that knowledge. Try as you might to gloss things over with fancy cocktail parties and vegan brunches or whatever is the current social distraction, at the back of your mind all you will be able to think of is how Henry snores like an elephant in labour or that Amanda eats like an invalid with missing teeth. In a world where we struggle to embrace our own idiosyncrasies, what chance do the oddities of others really stand? The more we learn about another person, the greater is the challenge to accept them, the more does our patience wear thin. And God forbid you should somehow find the divine restraint to reconcile yourself to the million little things that make up a person, for once you’ve made peace with that, what is left to fight and conquer?

There’s a reason why some of the greatest stories in the world focus on the journey of discovery itself. Nobody talks about what happens after the great resolution, for nothing ever does! When the first flush of pride at our superhuman capacity for tolerance begins to subside, old devil tedium rears his ugly head. After you’ve wandered through someone’s mindscape and pecked at their memories and aligned yourself with every crevice of their myriad beliefs, their thoughts cease to surprise and their soul shrivels into a shadow of your own self. And what good is a shadow when you already have one in perfect working condition?

Stop broadcasting every arbitrary sequence of words that just happens to pop into your head. Your Facebook followers don’t need to know your inner monologue at the exact moment you swallowed a dry pill. There is no compulsion to tweet your opinion on the chicken sandwich you had for breakfast. And for God’s sake, don’t even think of Instagramming an aerial shot of the sandals you bought on sale.

Bring back the mystery, people.