Breathe Out, So I Can Breathe You In…

Distance. hyperdictionary defines it as:

• [n] the property created by the space between two objects or points
• [n] size of the gap between two places; “the distance from New York to Chicago”; “he determined the length of the shortest line segment joining the two points”
• [n] indifference by personal withdrawal; “emotional distance”
• [n] a distant region; “I could see it in the distance”

[n] the interval between two times; “the distance from birth to death”; “it all happened in the space of 10 minutes”

• [n] a remote point in time; “if that happens it will be at some distance in the future”; “at a distance of ten years he had forgotten many of the details”
• [v] go far ahead of; “He outdistanced the other runners”
• [v] keep at a distance

I was quite surprised to find they’d included a definition of the word covering ‘emotional’ distance. That’s exactly what I felt like writing about today and I thought I’d be a little smarty and put a definition in that didn’t talk about that…and then I’d slowly get to my point and make this big ironic statement. But, they covered that base and I felt funny forcing my little trick. So, I just included their full definition and I’ll get on with the point making.

Being a Navy Brat, and later a US Marine in my own right, I was in the unique position, at a very early age, to understand the affect distance has on personal relationships. With my parents it only seemed to make their relationship stronger. At least from what I could see. While physical distance grew, with yearly West-Pacs, emotional distance shrunk. And this was before e-mail or cell phones. I remember watching my mom write letters every day. Sometimes twice a day. And, every day she had one or more letters in the mailbox. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that…

As the brat part of the Navy family I actually had the opposite experience. Friends made at the duty-stations we spent no more than three years at wrote when I left, and I wrote back. But, save for a few special ones I’m still in contact with, the letters slowly dropped off. Both on their part and mine. People change and move on, especially as you grow up, and physical distance drives a wedge and drags the emotional distance along with it.

But all that is really par for the course, isn’t it? Lovers often grow closer when separated, bolstered by plans for the reunion day which they know will come. Childhood friends, for the most part, grow older and apart; true friends being the few that stick together. No argument, and that’s not really what’s been on my mind. I accept those things.

Nope, nope. I’m talking about the strange gulf in emotional distance one finds when confronted with folks we have built relationships with over physical distance. That’s right. This here web thang. IRC, chat rooms, instant messages, web-chats, email, MU*s. You name it. A thousand and one ways to meet people you’ll never meet. Meet them? Hell, make them your best pals. Your confidants.

I have had, on occasion, the chance to meet people I developed relationships with like this. Inevitably we end up sitting across a table in some restaurant talking about the weather. Well, not really the weather, but you know what I mean. These are people who over the course of however long have learned personal details about me. The anonymity of the web gives us a freedom sometimes to share things with these people even those closest to us don’t know. So why do we act like strangers when we do meet? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the one driving a wedge and prying apart the emotional distance in these cases. Maybe I imagine that the other party is more comfortable with the distance and so I enforce it. Or maybe we’re all like this. I don’t know.

For whatever reason it’s weighed heavy on me these past few weeks. I’ve been in situations where I’ve poured my heart out to a window and then I come face to face and I have nothing to say, or I sense it’s best that I don’t. But if it’s best, why does it bother me? And it’s not just with people I only know through the web. This new age has us communicating with friends and family through IMs and e-mail. And sometimes they’re in the same city!

I don’t know about the rest of the Internet Generation, but I care about these people. And it troubles me that I am different, and they are different, when the windows and pop-ups are replaced with glasses and silverware. I had a point. Really, I did. Maybe that last sentence was it.