After Dark

Reading Murakami's 'After Dark', which takes place during one night, in one day, put me in a diary mood. This is a book in which almost-strangers have intimate conversations with each other. Not dramatic, confrontational or needy, just intimate.
I was watching Ze Frank's videos in the past couple of days, and the same kind of sadness struck me as I had in high school. Back then, I was unable -and didn't even try- to share my love for strange books or movies with anyone beyond my family and Philip. It's hard to accept that what touches you on a very fundamental level means nothing to most other people. The same is happening with Ze. I'm sure Sonja won't get it, and doesn't want to get it, but to me, Ze means something. He's the reason I started vlogging, and that means something. Sonja gets that a little, but not really.
This is one of the things we both find hardest to accept: the fact that we're different from each other on a very basic level. The things that move her, make her laugh, make her turn up the Yugo songs at full blast and close the door on me, are not the things that move me, make me laugh, make me steal any minute of alone time to read a book.
And yet this difference is also the basis for our relationship. We love the other one exactly because the other is different. It makes the relationship hard many times, but also alive at other times. We appreciate and hate the ability in the other to change us, to make us do things we don't really feel like doing, like move to Holland or take driving lessons. We're both unhappy a lot of the time, but we don't want to be without the other person.
We're happier when we're apart for a while, and we know it. I just hung up on Sonja, and she was laughing. She had her friend Ursa over and it sounded -through the 985 kilometers separating us- like she felt good and relaxed. At the moment, she likes me. Should the way our relationship began -exchanging pieces of text on a computer screen, leading up to our actual meeting- be a hint of what we're like: best when separated by geography, communicating only through mechanical devices? Maybe so, but that's not an option. This relationship is a job, but then everything is a job, as David Byrne put it.
I like to write, and blog, and vlog, and read, and watch movies, and learn Japanese. How can I hold on to these things while still meeting the obligations of this relationship? How can I be a good boyfriend and pursue these solitary activities?
It occurred to me today that you could rationally calculate how many books you are likely to read in your lifetime. Just keep track of how many pages you read for a few weeks or months, and then extrapolate to how old you think you'll be. I'm afraid to do the math, but the realization that your amount of books left is limited makes you consider what to read more wisely.
The same goes for your lifetime in general. Art is long but life is short. It's best to make the most of it, and making the most of it means caring for the people you love. Learn to drive. Dare to dance. Get married. Have kids. Buy a house. And don't approach everything, or rather anything with dread and self-pity. Only assholes feel sorry for themselves.