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i wanted to expand on something i've posted places a little bit. apologies if this doesn't make sense or is presented awkwardly, it's largely stream-of-consciousness and emotionally motivated.

i've spent a lot of my life wishing i could be with someone who "understood me" but to be honest i think i was looking at it the wrong way. Being Understood is a fixed, conditional situation; it exists in relation to a particular arrangement. what i needed (and got for a time, and misidentified as Being Understood) is To Be Given Understanding. hearing "i (in this exact moment and state) Understand you (in this exact moment and state)" can be compelling and comforting and healing in its own way but it is an inherently unstable arrangement on its own; being Given Understanding, being told "i want to recognize what causes you," is less exciting in the moment but is a much more consistent factor in forming connections if the process of connecting is unfamiliar or difficult.

in some way i suspect that this difference is a factor in why people treat artists (especially from certain marginalized backgrounds) in a strange, overly familiar, sometimes parasocial way. the artist provides a depiction of a piece of their experience, and it resonates with a piece of the audience's experience. this resonance, an Understanding in the moment, is mistaken for a permanent state of relation of the self, flattening the artist and audience both into a set of parallels between their respective similarity in experience.