Not what you see but how

Thinking about perceiving people. 

Usually I do so with doubt - some degree of skepticism, a measure of distance, even complete distrust sometimes. 

Other times it's with empathy. I feel some of what I think you're feeling. But there's often a certain kind of distance built into it. 

In certain circumstances, like when I'm traveling and have been alone and quiet for some time, people become visible and within arm's reach. I can talk to them, laugh, drink, dance, maybe even confide in them. It's real, but it's somehow even more temporal than the rest of life. There's a level of risk to it, but a certain kind of safety built into it too. A scene in a movie. A short chapter in a novel.

Remembering a moment when I perceived another person with complete openness, total acceptance, and no distance at all. That person had really done nothing to earn or deserve my trust. But it occurred nonetheless.

I can't remember how that moment happened. Is it a trick of memory? The rose colored glasses of self-preserving cognition? 

It doesn't seem possible now.