I’m Still Discovering Myself—You Don’t Know Me

There’s a phrase people use so easily that it almost slips by unnoticed: “I know you.”

I understand it’s meant as closeness — a soft attempt at comfort, a way of saying I see you, I care about you, I understand you. And I receive that intention with tenderness. Yet still, whenever I hear it, something inside me resists. The words don’t land lightly; they press against a deeper truth — one my analytical, sensitive mind can’t ignore.

Because the truth is, nobody truly knows me. And I don’t truly know them.

We may know things about each other — the surface details, the habits, the stories we’ve shared. We might know how someone takes their tea, what makes them laugh, or the name of their childhood pet. But to know someone — in the truest sense — would require feeling life from within their skin: the texture of their sorrow, the flavor of their joy, the unseen weight of their silence, the thousands of moments that shaped them. And that is something no one can fully hold.

We can listen. We can witness. We can offer compassion drawn from our own pain. But even when we say “I know how you feel,” perhaps what we really mean is, “I’ve felt something that rhymes with your experience.” Never the exact same thing.

When someone says “I know you,” my mind flashes through a thousand images they’ve never seen — memories, sensations, entire landscapes of my life they’ve never walked through. Versions of me that lived and vanished before they ever met me. How could anyone claim to know all that?

Even more — how could anyone truly know me when I am still discovering myself? Each day, I meet new corners of my being: what I believe, what I’m healing, how I wish to show up in the world. I am constantly changing, growing, unfolding. If I’m still meeting myself, how could anyone else possibly keep up?

I believe words matter. They shape how we relate, how we hold one another. And those words — “I know you” — carry a weight I can’t ignore.

Maybe instead we could say, “I’m learning you,” or “I want to understand you more.” Maybe we could remember that every person is a living story still being written — and the best we can do is keep reading with curiosity, without assuming we’ve reached the final page.

Perhaps the beauty is that we’ll never fully know one another. Maybe that’s what keeps relationships alive — the mystery, the discovery, the wonder of witnessing someone continue to unfold.

And in that endless becoming — of ourselves and of each other — we might find something even more sacred than knowing:

we find connection. Endless connection.