Love The Last Freedom

In thoughtful tête-à-tête with a very close friend we chatted about our mutual trust. One of its most liberating features was that it allowed us the freedom to be candid in a way we couldn’t be to our nearest and dearest. Is this our last freedom?

The discrete exchange of ideas and our innermost thoughts has nothing to do with indiscretion or dishonesty; quite the opposite. The free flow of ideas and feelings are all about transparency sadly lacking in the politically correct Orwellian nightmare we are waking up to.

No matter how close we are to others, regardless of our love and affection for them, there are simply things we cannot discuss for reasons perfectly understandable. We withhold our thoughts because we are sensitive to the feelings of ‘our nearest and dearest’. Few would tell partners they are unhappy in the relationship or explain to a child they’re not really cut out for modelling.

We confide some things to a partner we would never divulge to children; we discuss feelings with colleagues, we ‘confess’ to close friends feelings that are off the record. We should all have at least one such friend.

During the Victorian era a bond between two people known as romantic friendship was commonplace. It didn’t necessarily have anything to do with sex except perhaps for discrete debate between the two; sex would have been an unwanted intrusion.

Such deep friendships had everything to do with togetherness, intellectual rapport, soul mate closeness and a mutual trust. Generally romantic friendships were a relationship between two women, occasionally between men and often between unrelated men and women.

Emily Rapp was eloquent about the soul friendship that exists between women:

Friendships between two women are often the deepest and most profound love stories, but they are often discussed as if they were subsidiary, as ‘bonus’ relationships to the truly important ones.

Women’s friendships outlast jobs, parents, husbands, boyfriends, lovers, and sometimes children. It is possible to transcend the limits of your skin in a friendship.

This kind of friendship is not a frivolous connection, a supplementary relationship to the ones we’re taught are primary; spouses, children, parents. It is love, support, salvation, transformation, life: This is what women give to one another when they are true friends, soul friends.”

Such couples could express their innermost thoughts and expect from their alter ego if not uncritical acceptance then sympathy, empathy and discretion. It is a second opinion if you like.

There are depths’ of loneliness, despair, a sense of loss; amorous and Bacchanalian thoughts that convention obliges us to keep to ourselves. There are fantasies, longings and taboos which we feel that standards oblige us to never divulge.

Interestingly the anonymity and distance provided by the internet has led to an upsurge in romantic friends online. The anonymity and distance underscores a trust and a sense of security previously unknown. The internet has created a new world of cyber-companions and the world is a freer and happier place for it.

Everything that can be controlled is controlled except the thoughts we express to someone whose trust is absolute. What happens when Orwell’s futuristic ‘boot trampling on a human face’ stamps on the internet?