forming groups.

People tend to look for pointed reasons in the things that I believe are ruined by words. It was like that when we first met, with every other passerby as they feigned a blasé look. What exactly is it between you two? What do you like about each other? I fumble but not for lack of having anything to say.

Do you remember what it was like when you were a kid? More pliant, more whimsical when it came to who you'd prefer to be around day after day on the schoolyard. Ultimately you likely did form a clique if you were lucky, one or two others from whom you'd hardly ever stray. At least that's how it was with me.

I can't remember much about the friends I had at the time. It's fair to say our values didn't align. We were kids, after all. Our common interests were solely the games we played. One of them began to compulsively shoplift in the sixth grade. The other started going to cram school. We each drifted apart before going to separate high schools in the city. Yet I still naively puzzle over how we could have been in one another's company for such a length of time.

As I get older I think about how arbitrary it feels for me to be so guarded around people I'm meeting for the first time. It was like that with you, but when I try to put into words just why, it feels like they tumble out of my mouth like so many excuses. I think I was intimidated at how plainly you spoke, how direct you were even from the beginning. We would be talking and I would feel a welling beneath my skin of something both disarming and exciting.

If I had met you back at home, I don't think I would have been the person with the kind of wherewithal to find you again. And so I'm writing to you to let you know that I'm trying my best and as consciously as I can to keep that childish aspect of having no pretense about me.