You were special since the first days we met. maybe it started with curiosity, and pure intentions of understanding me at first. but then you started asking me hard questions about myself, about my behavior. I remember that I liked that.

Back in the University Club, you were the first, and the only one, to tell me the things I was doing wrong. you were not afraid of how I would react. you were not blinded by what people were saying about me. you were just seeing me.

Before that, everyone seemed to respect me in a way that backfired at me. they looked only at the good parts of me, and they never really bothered telling me real, honest feedback about myself. feedback is the love language I speak with. I wrote about it here https://a7med7x7.github.io/posts//lack_of_real_feedback/.

When you showed up, it felt as if you were the only one who was not blinded by my light. as if you were seeing the parts that were defective, and you wanted the light to shine brighter. you got closer, and you saw those parts.

At first, some of them were surface level. like the kind of intense behavior I had in the first days of the club. you told me I was much gentler than that, and that I should not be this way. and you hated that intensity. no one had ever dared to tell me something like that before. and I loved it.

It kept happening over the years. you kept making me question the things I do, and why I am doing them in the first place. what motivates me, and what is really happening beneath my actions.

You were the only one who cared enough to get close, through the hurt, to help me.

And you did.

I would not have imagined the kind of person I would have grown into without you. I would not have imagined the small, subtle conclusions I reached because of you. and those were only the beginning of greater ones.