you have to be friends with someone to be in a good relationship
like actual friends
like you check in with each other and genuinely care about them
not friends for a week,
not 'technically we started texting a month ago,'
even if you confessed,
even if you know it won't work out,
you still keep in touch.
maybe you do feel something after the first conversation. but that's not a long burning candle. you discover something is burning for a long time when it truly does burn for that long.
it's when you wonder, wow this person is still here. despite all of my flaws, they are here. it's in the terror of facing the worst stages, that they are there with you.
if i had to elucidate the appeal of extreme closeness, i’d probably describe it as thus: i find it both thrilling and exhausting to be in my own mind, and sometimes i want to share the burden of it. i want you to know everything, to share the inexhaustible accumulation of experience with me. — ava bookbear, closeness