It's Raining In Love.
When I was younger...MUCH YOUNGER...this was one of my favorite poems. It's by Richard Brautigan...and spoke volumes to that younger self. I accidentally came across it yesterday...and just wondered if it inspired any philosophical observations from the forum members.
[i]I don’t know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.
It makes me nervous.
I don’t say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.
If I say, “Do you think it’s going to rain?”
and she says, “I don’t know,”
I start thinking : Does she really like me?
In other words
I get a little creepy.
A friend of mine once said,
“It’s twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them.”
I think he’s right and besides,
it’s raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That’s all taken care of.
BUT
if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
“Do you think it’s going to rain?”
and I say, “It beats me,”
and she says, “Oh,”
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think : Thank God, it’s you, baby, this time
instead of me.[/i]
[i]I don’t know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.
It makes me nervous.
I don’t say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.
If I say, “Do you think it’s going to rain?”
and she says, “I don’t know,”
I start thinking : Does she really like me?
In other words
I get a little creepy.
A friend of mine once said,
“It’s twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them.”
I think he’s right and besides,
it’s raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That’s all taken care of.
BUT
if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
“Do you think it’s going to rain?”
and I say, “It beats me,”
and she says, “Oh,”
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think : Thank God, it’s you, baby, this time
instead of me.[/i]
Comments (6)
I just happened to see this.
That aspect of getting to know someone on that level, which is generally regarded as some sort of fear of girls, seems to me to be about learning about, or experiencing, the anxiety of opening yourself up in ways you don’t generally do. It’s a very difficult game of treading carefully. Open up too much and you scare them, open up when they’re not ready or interested and you drown in your own clumsiness. But if you don’t try it nothing happens. How many give up too early or find it too frightening to confront themselves on that level or feel so hurt by the response they receive that they never repeat it or worse contrive and lie and deceive to get what they want. Friendship is relatively uncomplicated, generally it doesn’t expect that opening up at these deeper relationships. Opening up at the level this poem is talking about requires a real leap that offers rewards inconceivable until you do it. From a philosophical point of view it’s like believing in God; he won’t show himself until you make the first step of accepting him.
Edit: if you can’t love how can you be loved?
It is a lovely poem...and expresses some things I think need to be expressed.
Quoting Frank Apisa
What are those things?
The poem seems to be referring to an experience of youth and if not youth then inexperience.
I guess in referring to your age you mean that you have no problem in opening up, that it’s something you’ve learned to understand or that experience has taught you.
But isn’t it always a new experience when you meet someone new? It’s just that so many of those moments happen when you’re younger, you’re compelled to meet people and become part of the world. Later in life that happens less often; because we don’t need people so much, because it gets too hard or because we have too many wounds?
My "wounds" are relatively few...and I've learned to put them behind me...to enjoy today and its joys.
Just enjoy the poem for it value as, "Thank god it is you not me."
Quoting Frank Apisa
Quoting Frank Apisa
Well I was responding to this, but no matter.
When I re-read my response, it sounded more curt than I meant it. I appreciate you taking the time to respond and value what you had to say.
Hope all is well with you. Stay safe. This coronavirus thing has most of us in a place where we'd rather not be.