I don't know them. Yet.
I face the vast possibility of never truly knowing them. They do confuse the shit out of me, but it's nice.
I know they're genuine. They are unlike anyone I've ever met in my life, and I hate the idea of not understanding someone, but somehow, it's fine because it really makes me excited to know someone, because I don't yet.
I blindly trust them. Should I? Everything I've been taught tells me to keep it surface level until I know I can trust them, but who cares about trust?
At the end of the day, I decide that I will make this exception to leap into the arms of a literal stranger. Whether it be a skinny Honduran kid from Orlando that can talk at the speed of light or a girl from Seattle with a distractingly low voice who is more genuine than 99 percent of the people you've met in your lifetime, making the effort is tough. It is especially tough with orientation happening simultaneously:
I walk into a room of a hundred mirrors. It feels like one of those cliche mirror mazes in carnivals that no one ever seems to find anymore, but the mirrors only show the need for acceptance that I feel in myself. I talk to about 30 of these mirrors; the mirrors I was forced to talk to. The one that I talk to voluntarily is not a mirror, but a painting. A painting made with strokes that won't ever be imitated. It is dried, not necessarily finished. A work of art as it is, but waiting to be added to. I don't really want the painting to be added to, I think to myself while looking at the painting. I try justifying this selfish thought in my head: How did Jackson Pollack know when to stop? Then I start thinking about how I could add to this painting, and that's so exciting. Imagining what strokes to add, or colors to use. I just wish that someday I could see everyone as a painting.