From the author: This article is the result of lived experience, acquired knowledge and internal work. Until recently, the Other was not as important to me as it is now. There was a lot of tension around the Other, which I wanted to get away from by any means: work, household chores, alcohol, or I simply went to “get distracted” with friends, parents... I expected a lot from the Other, I waited as if He owed me everything this is what I have to do. Inevitably, disappointment, resentment, anger, irritation, depreciation “you’re just like everyone else” or “it turns out you’re not such a Prince” followed... The illusion took its toll, and expectations appeared again. And again disappointment. Then tension. Strong, unbearable, disgusting. I always successfully ran away from him. But it was my “friend”, just like the Other. It had a purpose, I needed it for something. To understand what I’m running away from, what I’m so tense about. Different, he really is so different...And he is not always able to accept, understand, support, be like. Not because he is weak or stupid, but because he is different. When I was rejected, I fell backwards as if struck. She lay bleeding, closing her eyes in pain and horror. “How could you do that?! HOW could you be different from me and my expectations?!! Traitor!” And then one fine day, lying knocked out, I suddenly realized that He was not a Traitor. He's just different. He just can’t... And then I stopped bleeding and dying. I, as in the “matrix,” stood up and stood firmly on my feet. And at that moment I SAW HIM. Not through the tiny hole of my own expectations, ideas about “what he is like,” but I saw Him entirely. I realized how important he is to me, how valuable he is, precisely because he is Other. It's great to be around while being different. It’s great when you don’t want to remake “candy out of shit,” but want to find out “how’s it going for you?” I look at Him and am amazed at how different He is. He thinks differently, speaks differently, moves, loves... And this is the whole World. And he sees the world differently. It’s interesting how...I realized that the Other is the Universe, which you can get to know for eternity. How can another bother or rub against you? Only if you block your interest, live with expectations, go with a stencil to others, devalue otherness. And next to him, I realized what I was running away from, what I was stressing about. After all, only next to the Other am I alive, feeling. And feeling feelings is scary. It turned out to be deadly for me to feel melancholy, sadness, sadness. There was once too much of them in my life. And I told myself that I won't let this happen again. It seemed to me that sadness could suck me into a huge black hole, from where the only way out was to the next world. I gave up this part of myself. I cursed my ability to feel sad. Sadness is death. But I was deeply mistaken. Death is insensibility. Death is nothing and nothing. It's the emptiness inside of you. This is the black hole that sucks. And then the Other is a threat. A threat to my black holes. The other had to be run away. There was fear or a panicky desire to urgently do something with oneself or others, to change something. Do anything but stop and feel. After all, this is dangerous, but what if you feel something terrible?! Now the Other is important to me. The other is a healing source of feeling. He gives me the opportunity to be Alive. My heart wakes up next to him. And if I stay close, I will not die, no matter what my soul feels. Feelings are the river of Life. Only the Other reveals himself to me, he shows me my Universe. Without the Other, my world cannot be discovered, there is no life in the emptiness. The most beautiful experience in life is the experience of being next to Another. Without absorbing it or dissolving in it, but simply BEING NEAR. Together, now and here, holding His warm hand, inhaling His unique smell, looking into the Ocean, full of secrets and miracles. I Live Next to Another. There is no other way…