Figuring out what another person is thinking is tiring. So tiring that I'm almost tempted to just throw in the towel and stop wondering. Tempted but not set following through with the suspension of my curiosity. Clearly.

An email from a friend of mine unintentionally raised an interesting question: in dealing with the men in our lives who eternally puzzle us, how can we posit suggestions about what they might be thinking-- help them clarify their thoughts, so to speak-- without seeming as though we are merely talking about our ourselves?

Recently I addressed a letter to someone that personally inserted me into this quandry. He was quick to point out that much of what I wrote was entirely about me and not about him; after all, how could I know what was going on in his head? And furthermore, how could I take such liberties with his thinking?

Months later I think it was, perhaps, a desperation of sorts; a grasping at what was comprehensible to me, which happened to be an interpretation based on how I would behave if I were in his position.

There are so many spaces and times in which we just plain "miss" each other, where two minds are clearly not one. There are more times than not when it becomes abundantly clear that we can never completely get at the essence of another's thinking no matter how much time we invest in memorizing all the details. Some things just can't be teased out.