Knowing you? or Loving you?

As they walked towards the beach, she felt lighter being in his company than she did a few days back. She felt acquainted to him again. She now felt more comfortable after witnessing how he tipped the driver more than generously and recollecting what he had said to him.

After reaching the beige colored sands, which got darker as the sun was setting, they picked a place to sit down.

“You’re still kind. You just have a warped sense of feeling that you have changed. I still feel that you’re the same guy I met more than two decades ago. Maybe you just feel you’ve changed, but it isn’t true.” She said, as she looked towards the horizon.

“I think you’re miscalculating, and I never want you to do that.” he said.

After her silence to this, while she smiled a little, he continued, “I was kind to that driver due to the limited view I had of his facts and his horrid circumstance and he seemed like a good person. That’s all. I am sure if I would know him well enough, things may have been different.”

“But you do love some people in your life, and I know you love me. You know all of us well. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense.” She said

“I don’t think that’s love on its own. That is a result of responsibility and comfort. Most of the times, love is the result of comfort due to what we think we know. Most of the times, the more you know someone, can result in two things – one is comfort, and the other is discomfort or indifference, and sometimes hate. Most times, comfort supersedes love. I am sure if I know someone too well, I wouldn’t love them and hence I feel it’s better to not know everyone completely, because then I just know that no one, even me, is worthy of receiving the thing called flawless love; because you know, there is no such thing.”  

He tapped his snuffbox, and administered a nice fat pinch. He looked at her and she looked perplexed.

“Don’t worry. Even I don’t understand this sometimes. All I know is, this is the way it is.”