Have you ever been shamed? I don’t mean humbled; that’s different. To be humbled is to have something you are making explicit as being your forté, and have someone prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are more a master of the subject than you yourself. Being shamed is having someone stumble upon you in the dark where you think you’re safe and have them send a dagger through that most private place. Most of the time, the person doing it isn’t aware that they are.

Tonight, she sneaked into the dark corner without knowing it, and thrust the knife into virgin sinews. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t for them to rend; when they did, my first impulse was to hide. How like Adam: cover yourself with fig leaves ex post facto and somehow the One who’s already exposed you will be utterly unable to perceive your shame. However much a non sequitur, these things happen.

I think I’d add to those qualifications of things about “real life romance” versus the kind in books, that when you’re shamed, you don’t run, because the other doesn’t hate you for the thing for which they shamed you. (If they do, well, that’s another matter entirely, isn’t it?)

Have you ever been shamed? I don’t mean humbled; that’s different. To be humbled is to have something you are making explicit as being your forté, and have someone prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are more a master of the subject than you yourself. Being shamed is having someone stumble upon you in the dark where you think you’re safe and have them send a dagger through that most private place. Most of the time, the person doing it isn’t aware that they are.

Tonight, she sneaked into the dark corner without knowing it, and thrust the knife into virgin sinews. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t for them to rend; when they did, my first impulse was to hide. How like Adam: cover yourself with fig leaves ex post facto and somehow the One who’s already exposed you will be utterly unable to perceive your shame. However much a non sequitur, these things happen.

I think I’d add to those qualifications of things about “real life romance” versus the kind in books, that when you’re shamed, you don’t run, because the other doesn’t hate you for the thing for which they shamed you. (If they do, well, that’s another matter entirely, isn’t it?)