How well is too well...

Taking a break from my normal updating, I felt the urge to write about something that I've thought of many times before, but that has come to my attention even more since being out here (maybe it's the ocean, or the clouds, or just the beauty that surrounds you here that makes you think more clearly, and more intently).  How well does a person have to know you, for them to know you too well?  Or is there even such a thing as someone knowing you too well?

I'm not a person that many people know...or at least not really know.  I am acquainted with a lot of people, sure.  Some may even think they know me far better than they actually do.  But in reality, those people don't know much more than what's on the surface.  And let's be honest, most people wear several different masks, and show you only what they want you to see.  Knowing someone on the surface isn't knowing them at all.  I freely admit I'm someone who wears a few different masks.  I think it's pretty necessary.  At work I am the professional, business me.  With good friends I am a more vulnerable, true me.  With family I'm still the vulnerable me, and sometimes still the child me...still a very true me...it's just that sometimes I hear myself revert back to the young me when I'm talking to family...maybe that's a normal thing.  But mostly, I'm a guarded me.  Mostly people see only a glimpse of me.  I'm not vulnerable, emotional, or open with most people.  I try to appear tough most often than not, because that's how I've learned to function.

But there are a few people...very few...who know me more than most.  But I think it could be a double edge sword to have someone know you so well.  I mean, partly, it's a beautiful thing, to be able to communicate without words, sometimes without even looking at each other...to know what to say before you're even asked a question...to know how someone would feel about something, or someone, without them even being around.  But on the reverse side of that, sometimes we know people so well, that we see what we expect to see, even when the reality is much different.  Sometimes you know someone so well that you don't even think it's a possibility that they may have changed in some way...or that they're trying to change.  I guess it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy...you know them, you know what to expect, and so that's what you see...regardless what they show you.

I don't know what constitutes knowing someone "too well", but I do appreciate anyone thinking enough of me to know me at all.