I know this isn't AIBU but I couldn't think how else to phrase it?
I have an old school friend. We often chat about Life the Universe etc
I got an email this morning. It's a quote from RM Rilke:
"But this is what ... people are so often and disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment ...And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half broken things that they would like to call their happiness, and their futures? And so each of them loses himself to the other for the sake of the other person, and loses the other. And loses the vast possibilities ... in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come, nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment and poverty.”
It is headed: 'Interesting Quote'.
It comes just after I've been chatting about a protracted dental saga I've had. Friend was commiserating re simliar issue he'd had last year.
It reads as 'back off' to me, but maybe it really is just a quote that has caught their eye ? We do sometimes send quotes / snippets of books to each other for opinions so not unprecedented but I thought it odd as the directly previous email had said:
"Why does any one person love another, why does anyone want to be friends? It's not quantifiable. I don't make friends easily and you're clever, beautiful, interesting, have similar tastes to me and don't do smalltalk. That's enough for me".
I'd thought that possibly flirtatious so was a bit wary and didn't reply.
Then I get the Rilke quote today, having had a short factual convo re Dentist saga in between. I'm confused (but tired and on opiates so maybe why?)