I Miss You (Not)

When I watch a movie and a character says "I miss you," a little bit of my heart warms. But in real life, in most of my experiences (obviously can't speak for everyone else), the sentence "I miss you" is uttered with almost as much flippancy as the sentence "I love you."

I miss lots of things. I miss Disney World a lot. I miss watching cartoons on Saturday morning. I miss a certain little dog (that story coming soon).

But what really gets to you is when you miss people. And the thing is, you want to be missed. You want people to long for you to be in their lives, especially certain people. So when you hear "I miss you" and you know the person doesn't mean it, it makes hurt that much harder to get over, no matter how insignificant it is. No matter how much you think you've forgotten.

Recently, an old friend of my sister's commented on my sister's Instagram photo. The message read in part, "I miss you." My sister was surprised as she hadn't spoken to this person in years and this other person was the one who had left the friendship.

I wasn't too surprised, even though I knew it was disingenuous. I just expect it to be one of those things that people say without thinking or say when they don't want to make someone feel bad.

"I miss you" we tell that friend we never take the time to call.

"I'll miss you" we write in the yearbook of that school chum we know we won't bother to hang out with over the summer.

"I miss you guys" we tell a group of fun acquaintances after someone tell a really good joke and you're glowing in the endorphins and company.

"I'll miss you" we tell people who are leaving their lives, even, sometimes, when we don't really know them that well.

But doesn't it follow that if you miss someone, you do everything you can to let them know and close the distance? You call. You text at least occasionally. Surely, you do more than act like you were crossing your fingers behind your back when you said "I miss you."

Or maybe you don't because maybe, sometimes, we say "I miss you" for ourselves and not for the other person. Maybe it's just a way of saying, "I know we haven't talked in a while and though I'm not super bummed that you're not in my life anymore, I feel kind of guilty about the way things ended so I'm saying 'I miss you' even though no part of me longs for your company anymore so that you don't think that I just completely stopped caring because I don't want you to think I'm  cold, heartless person. But really, I'm fine without you. I'm just trying to make myself feel better because I believe you miss me a lot even though I haven't honestly asked you if you did, or maybe because you said 'I miss you' for the exact same reason I said 'I miss you.'"

Or so it seems.

So the enchantment is this: Maybe, just maybe, there's a few people out there who mean it when they say "I miss you."