Correspondent: A man I had just started dating who wanted to know what he was getting into.
Date: Written more than ten years ago, about a relationship I had more than twenty-five years ago.
You mentioned that you have loved a lot of people. Presumably you are no longer dating most of them. Tell me about the relationship arcs after you stopped dating. Would you still say you love them?
Yes, I still love them — or at least, I love the person they were when I knew them well.
Here’s an example. In college I dated a guy named Karl. We broke up in 1997, so it’s ancient history, but at the time I knew him very well and I loved him. I have many happy memories of my time with him. My mind is still littered with things that remind me of him.
After breaking up, we took some time apart to readjust and get steady again in the new configuration, but after the wounds had healed, we became friends again, and stayed in touch — but only lightly. He moved back to Boston, I didn’t, and he’s a terrible correspondent. The last time I saw him in person was when he came out for a visit to Seattle sometime in the early 2000s. We exchange a flurry of emails once every couple of years.
I’m going to Boston for PAX East in April and I’ll see him and have dinner with him. I’m very much looking forward to it.
I still love Karl. I am in the Karl fan club. I want all good things and happiness for him. The strangeness and wonder of his neuroses and quirks still make me smile to think about. I still remember what it felt like to be held by him. I remember some terrible screaming fights we had and why we had them, and why there was still a chocolate milkshake stain on the wall when I moved out of that apartment. I remember working on and driving his Datsun 280Z, and I remember realizing several miles down the road that we hadn’t tightened the nuts holding the wheels on. The wheels almost came off, literally. I remember his Weimaraner, Merlin, and how Karl would ask, “Have you been a questionable dog?”
But I don’t know 2014 Karl, not really. I know 1997 Karl, but I also believe that people can grow and change over time, and that he probably has. But if, in April, I ask the right questions and listen carefully and he opens up fast enough for me to absorb the diff in a short period of time, then I will very quickly love 2014 Karl too. I won’t have to hear all the stories of everything that happened to get an updated picture of who he is now.
The story of Karl is not unique, there are many other names and years and details I could have cited just as easily.
Karl died of cancer in 2020 [obituary]. I hadn’t had a real conversation with him in about four years, but I loved him still and I cried for him. I still miss him sometimes.
Here’s Karl in his native habitat, an MIT compute cluster, circa 1997.
This is a lovely letter. Thank you for writing it.