To human complexity,

Lately, I have been realizing how complicated humans can be. Even the ones you trust the most, lie. The ones you felt like you knew everything about, are actually a mystery. People are an enigma. The human mind is so complicated. Or, the minds of the people that surround me — at Stanford and in the Bay area — who are admirably wicked smart, are beyond complex and hard to decipher. 

I like to be able to read people — understand their motives, intentions, how they view and value me. I used to think that I was good at it, yet lately I have been noticing that I actually am not. To trust or to not trust. Family members that share your blood end up stabbing you in the back. I am continuously shocked by how people around me turn out to be. It is a surprise, like an unexpected ending of a novel where the main character dies so suddenly that you are left in tears. 

In Pasadena, my best friend from Stanford and I are driving back to her house. It’s the friend that has been with me through my tears and rants, through heartbreak and adventure and who has laughed with me through the Stanford nights of staring into a computer screen for hours, while making silly jokes about life. 

We had just explored Caltech, and we were driving back to her house during the beautiful orange southern California sunset. At Caltech, we had happened to pass by a grad party, where we were offered drinks by two other grad students, with whom we had a conversation about seemingly random subjects — what to do around Caltech, how friendships form and the nearby building whose gates had reminded me of an ancient Egyptian temple. Then, the party ended, and like molecules moving around in unexpected random motion, people dissolved into their separate lives, without the knowledge of whether a collision between these molecules would happen again or not. 

In the car, we talked about these moments and such people. She said something so deep, that I felt surprised to have noticed a new, deeper layer into her character that I was so sure I knew entirely of. She told me that some moments are meant to be experienced once, and some people are meant to be encountered once. Sometimes I don’t take pictures of things. If it is too beautiful, then you are not meant to take a picture of it, not even take your phone out — like a beautiful sunset or a TV Girl concert where they are playing Lovers Rock. 

I stared at the silhouettes of the palm trees surrounding us, their lines against the orange sunset, and felt her words soften my heart. It is the evanescence of experiences that makes them so meaningful. Then I ask her, “Isn’t there sadness in forgetting?” She disagrees and says she always thinks about the future and stays hopeful about what can happen. You always think about the past, she tells me. It’s true: she likes to dream about what’s meant to come, and I like to dwell in the past and get melancholic. I let my heart sink deeply into nostalgia like a drug I can’t stop myself from using. 

I think about the blue in the eyes of the guy we met at Caltech — a blue I was meant to interact with once. I think about Analiese, how mellow and quiet she gets when we are alone and we can comfortably sink into the silence. I think about her complex, bewildering mind, and try to decipher what thoughts she possesses, yet now I realize I was never really able to truly understand her. I think I know her so well, then she says these really deep sentences out of nowhere. As we drive on this highway to Santa Ana, I watch the orange of the sunset fade slowly into blue and darkness, and I find myself thinking about how grateful I am to have her in my life. 

A few weeks ago, I learned that someone whom I thought I knew quite well, was actually unfaithful to his girlfriend — who happens to be my best friend from home — the whole time. Hearing this made me remember a night we had in Istanbul, when I, him, and my best friend were out at a bar. It was a warm spring night, and our minds were softened by the chaotic blend of alcohol and the myriad of voices of Istanbul’s loud and lively Galata district. It’s forever crowded in Galata; people of all kinds of life stories are amassed in this historical district of Istanbul at night, enjoying, reminiscing, or perhaps trying to get away from whatever it is that life brings. My best friend goes to the bathroom, and we are briefly left alone with him. 

“So how is it going with her,” I ask him. 

“It’s great,” he says. 

I keep it brief, and come straight to my point: 

“Do not make her sad.” 

He says he won’t and that he is thinking very seriously about her. Our conversation flows elsewhere, as we have made the assertions we needed to make: I am protective of her, and he is madly in love. She comes back, and I watch him as he stops her from smoking another one of the cigarettes that were bought from across the street, holds her hand and addresses her in Turkish as aşkım — my love. Perhaps such acts of ownership by men in Middle Eastern societies is a way of declaring territory, I think to myself. Yet, I am somehow convinced; he does seem in love. 

Yet, I was wrong about my judgment of him. No one closely involved with my best friend’s life saw it coming, really. Yet, I am left in shock by his actions of infidelity. He was so in love with her, I think to myself, was he not? I thought I could see his love for her in his eyes, from the way he would look at her. Maybe he was. Then why would he? It’s so complex… There is no answer really. How hard I try, I will never be able to come up with the neural circuitry of his brain that caused him to act the way he did. His mind is a mystery. Perhaps everyone’s mind is a mystery. 

Lovebombing is an act of lying too. In the moment, saying whatever comes to mind to demonstrate your wild attractions, isn’t really a reflection of what you mean when you think about things in the long term. Kissing someone — that’s a lie too. Kissing should be an act of love, yet it gets committed in impulsive acts of lust, without wanting it to be meant for anything. Now, nothing means anything for people. People smile at you, tell you they love talking to you, laugh at your jokes, make you laugh, make you feel loved and warm and comfortable — but it’s actually all so futile. They can end up going 180 the next day. 

But there are genuine things in life that one might truly understand. For now, I feel conflicted. Perhaps I need to contemplate more, meet more, experience more to figure these things out.