Curiousity is a form of love

you should ask more questions

This newsletter is an original draft that will be divided into two parts. Both leaning on the same idea: that love is nurtured by proximity.

It’s a concept I have grown fairly obsessed with in recent times. Could be because moving back home has given me a larger need and desire to be closer to my friends. This desire has manifested itself in calls and visits, and long hours spent thinking about my friendships and how they can be better, given the distance.

Somehow, I’ve landed on several touchpoints. The first one is tied to curiousity and the role it plays in nurturing proximity in our friendships.

My aunt doesn’t call to check in on me, without slipping in a sentence that goes something like, “Your mom told me you were doing this and this.” She has a very good idea of how I am doing, all the time. When I was younger, it would stress me a little, despite how much I love her, because I felt like I was being too seen. But in recent years, I’ve come to truly appreciate what it means when she tells me what my mother told her, or when she asks me herself.

It means she is thinking of me.

It means she cares.

We like to ascribe love and affection to many things: the willingness of our loved ones to show up for us, how wide they smile when we walk through the door, their remembrance of the little details we supply them with, and the crushing weight of their hugs —but I think we don’t talk enough about curiosity as a form of love.

The reason — and this is just a hunch — is because being nosey is highly anti-cultural. In our generation, we don’t roll like that. For one, it reminds us of our parents and their neighbours. The older generation always looking to be in the know, you know? Butting their heads into each other’s businesses, trying to know why x and y happened. But we, on the other hand, are Cool People.™ We would only ask if it feels polite, or if they bring it up first. We are too afraid to offend our friends by wondering why they never speak about their dad or what the marks on their arms are. We would rather make educated guesses and send love in all the ways we can to comfort the perceived pain without interrogating the source of the wounds.

But is it really effective if we’re constantly toeing the lines, wary of dragging our loved ones close and asking:

“Why do you do that?”

“Where does it hurt?”

“Yesterday, your mother said this, what did she mean by that?”

And I get it, the dangers of asking the right or wrong questions. How like salt poured on a snail, it can threaten recoil. But I don’t want to love blindly, and neither should you. I’ve written to you guys once about love languages, and how they can be interpreted differently by different people. It makes the idea of asking even more appealing to me. I want to know exactly what my friends need so I can show up for them in all the right ways. I want to love them in a language they would understand.

A detective on a crime scene can only make so much leeway by observing the cracks on the wall, the footprints, and the spray stains of blood on the sheets. At some point, he will have to bring the suspects into the interrogation room, cup of coffee in hand, and ask them the hard-hitting questions.

That’s how you make progress. That’s how you solve a case.

There are many arguments against this idea, and they might all be valid. There’s an argument for how misguided curiousity can be deadly in the wrong hands, and I agree. You don’t want to open a can of worms for your enemy to feast on. You also don’t want to be the enemy. But maybe this is where wisdom comes in, in knowing who to ask these questions, or if you’re being asked, what to say in response.

I mean, the human condition is complex and relationships are not always programmed with cookie-cutter equations that give you as much as you’re willing to give, but I would rather wrestle with knowing I am being open and vulnerable to the people who claim they love me, than close myself off just because I am afraid of what the repercussions might be.

I also attribute a lack of questions to a lack of interest. If a person who claims to love or like me doesn’t want to know enough about who I am and what has happened to me, there’s only so much ground we can cover as friends or lovers, despite how long we may have known each other and all the memories we’ve shared. At the end of the day, you can only get closer by getting your hands dirty.

It’s the only way.

In first date questions, I wrote:

to have someone to dote on is a blissful thing, but people prefer to be loved than to love. it’s not that i didn’t know it was easier this way, i just want everything. the entrails, the rinds, the nitty gritty details of a life as strange and beautiful as mine. i want to know you beyond the tweets and the streaks, the green circles, and love emojis. so much to explore, to adore and to fall for.

I think many of us are lonely, not for a lack of friends, but because we don’t feel close enough to the friends we already have.

I also think when we express curiosity by sitting with them and asking questions about their lives, we signal an openness that is traded in with even more questions, back and forth, and this way, we are able to knit closer bonds with the people that we’ve chosen to love.

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Treasure’s Corner

• I have been reading and writing a lot. Call it a Renaissance, if you will. Last night I opened a new newsletter to share things I love. You can check out the first post here. It’s about raggaeton.

• #SpotifyWrapped this year was pretty underwhelming. Did you like yours?

• I think The Trunk on Netflix is the best thing I have seen in recent times. It has so much colour, and the filmography is beautiful. I also really like When the Phone Rings. Wasn’t impressed with any of the dramas that came out this year, but it is really looking like the year is being crowned with glory.

• Am I the only person who hasn’t seen Wicked yet?

• I think you should read this piece.