It Was Unlike Us

Toward the tail end of our relationship, which saw us cohabitating for some six years, all we ever did was use computers; relegated by yawning space to separate rooms in our little apartment, yards apart. We IMed rather than raise our voices, the din of the television swelling into the painful distance between us. 

It was unlike us. It was unlike me. We met when young, at a time when both of us had waited through the numb-tunnel of our high school years as strange ones, lonesome ones, for someone we could love. When we met we hugged and kissed constantly with the singular needfulness of the deprived. Like we had been waiting all our lives just for someone we could hug and kiss without ever needing permission, and like having found it supplanted all other needs, like compatible personalities or life goals or tastes or anything. Having found it sustained us alone until we became old enough to understand it was not enough. 

Alexander, L., On Intimacy, Thought Catalogue