How can you ask such a question?
Can anyone be simplified to a yes or no answer?
Of course not. Not in a million years could a person be summed up in a yes or no question. It is all purely subjective, depending on the person who is answering the question, how well they know them, and their multitude or lack or experiences with that said person. How can anyone be summed up by another person? Who are they to judge?
My friend asked me this question the other day. And I replied the exact same way as I have transcribed above.
I looked back at him and wondered. Could we describe the stars as 'nice', or the twinkle in the eyes of the person you love, or even the sound of a fresh stream on a summer's evening? Are those things just nice to you?
I looked back at him and smiled. Nobody knows a person as well as they know themselves. There is so much poetry out there, saying how your soulmate will know you better than you know yourself etc, but it's all just poetry. Poetry is there to make you feel something. To provoke an emotion out of you, whether it be of happiness or of sadness. It is not real.
I'm such a strong believer in loving yourself before loving anyone else. At the moment, I'm feeling lost. I'm loving, but I am so caught up in loving others that I have come to neglect the most important person: myself. No, this is in no ways selfish. Loving yourself should be the priority. In the end, you only have you. No matter how much love you have given out and how many people are around you and 'there' for you, it is only ever you who can truly help yourself out of whatever situation you have found yourself in. You must thus know yourself enough to know how to get yourself to where you want to be.
It must be 'nice' to know someone as well as they know themselves. It must be 'nice' knowing someone the way the poetry books describe. It must be 'nice' knowing how their beautiful mind works, or the reason why they smile when they see pink cherry blossoms, or why they plait one strand of hair occasionally, just to let it loose a few days later. It must be 'nice' to fall in love with someone, whether it be romantically or platonically. It must be nice to sit in a room with someone in complete silence and just vibe with them. That must be nice.
And so one final time, I looked at him and took a deep breath in.
"I cannot answer your question." I replied
"But maybe, if you get to know her, who'll realise she is so much more than a yes or no answer."
