Long overdue.

A man and a woman live across an ocean. They talk every day. They share confidences, events of their days, stories of people they know. They trade memories of themselves they've never shown others. They dream of a future. They discuss science, human sympathies, great books read and unread. They imagine touching one another. They pine.

The man is frustrated. He wants to go places. He wants to touch the world, and repair it just slightly. He wants someone to believe in his careful, studious energy. He wants to be proud. He is looking for someone who is tolerant of and even excited by the perverse talent he has always nurtured alone--someone who sees that the future will prize it. He needs someone to prop him up, assuage his doubts, carry energy when he has lost it: to stay focused on the long turn of life.

The woman is worried. She feels pressure to work hard & work smart, to be ambitious: not to let things fall through. She finds the office life tiresome, wants to be free of it. Her compassion is her greatest virtue, she feels. She dreams of using it, of being valued for it. She dreams of caring for children, animals, a home. She wants to love someone—someone intelligent, someone capable and deft but not ambitious, not too driven; someone leisurely and enjoyable. She wants to be cherished for her tenderness alone.

The man never speaks of his strange talent, for which he yearns to be applauded, which he wishes to discuss but only in hushed whispers, which must be guarded from the world. The woman likes what he does but never says so, not wanting to be caught naive or misunderstanding his passion. Instead she stages her delicacy, her difficulty, her need. The man wants to protect her, to nurture her, to embolden her and bring her into a life, full and glad and messy. But she is too delicate, too slow, too fearful; he doesn't get what he wants; he doesn't protect her; she doesn't get what she wants.