Careful what you wish for

During my last hospital stay, I had a dream that involved a friend. He's a close friend, we've been corresponding for almost two years now. (But it's not like that, really.) It was an interesting dream, although it wasn't one of those dreams, I promise.

It was the sort of dream that I felt compelled to share with this friend. I wasn't sure why, but the minute I woke I thought that I would have to tell him; so I did. Not mentioning it would have felt like keeping some kind of secret, and honestly it wasn't the kind of thing I thought I needed to keep to myself. So I waited a few days, and then I told him. (No, I'm not going to tell you, you weren't in the dream.)

To my surprise, he wasn't freaked out. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but isn't "I had a dream about you" a phrase you'd rather not hear from a friend of the opposite sex? I've always been reasonably lucky when it comes to having a fairly large number of male friends and not having gender differences be a problem.

I suppose if I had imagined the reaction I wanted--which i did not--it would have been very close to what I got. That's so cool. I suppose that's the basic reason he and I are friends. I like that there's no word in English to express that basis. Oddly, Romance languages do have a word that's almost perfect: in Spanish it's sympatico.

Interesting. Isn't it?

Oh, I managed not to get myself stuck back in there, which is also a good thing.

before - after