There are two ways of driving to my house, the direct route and the scenic route. I would not call the scenic route the indirect route, because both drives seem direct enough. It's just that the direct route has two fewer traffic lights and one less turn through the town center but does not offer a view of the river, as the scenic route does. When alone, I choose the route based not on time but on my state of mind. When I think of myself I take the direct route, and when I think of you I take the scenic route.
There are two ways to walk to the park, the shorter route about four hundred meters past the homeless men sifting through trash cans and urinating in the gutter when they aren't lying in a death trance against a graffiti-riddled abandoned tenement, or the longer route about five hundred meters along a cobbled path beneath a canopy of trees upon which black-capped chickadees, goldfinches, and scrub jays sing while hopping from branch, fluttering their wings, and defacating on the path below. The choice seems just about equal to me, and I take them both whether I am alone (the shorter route) or with you (the longer route).
There are two places we can go out for a drink, the local bar or the high-end bar. The local bar is not a low-end bar. In fact, it is greater than a high-end bar if you don't mind drinking by the landlocked town square and if you prefer drinking alongside the locals, the people who know the news of the community, the history of the bar, the quirks and penchants of the patrons, and the mixology of the bartenders. All night either a juke box plays the Great American Songbook or the player piano spins Tin Pan Alley tunes. The high-end bar is so called only because it overlooks the bay, which allows the proprietor to charge more for the drinks. But it's a throwback too. Dark wood planks cover the floor, wall, and ceilings. A candlelit chandelier flickers over the center of the room, four gas lights glow on the walls of each corner, sawdust is littered across the floor, and a black woodburning cast iron pot belly stove covers the center of the room. Warm Guinness is on tap. A neighborhood quartet commands a round table in a far corner plays Irish folk songs between sips of whisky on fiddle, banjo, tin whistle, and bodhrán. Both locals and out-of-towners go there. We go to the local bar when we have more time on our hands and to the high-end bar when we have less.
And you tell me there are two ways of loving you, the way I want to love you and the way you want me to love you. You say neither is the bad way, but they are different. As you put it, one is the sensory way and the other the soulful way, one way that fuses you into everyone and everything around you so that you are in harmony with my world and one that masks everyone and everything around you so that only you come into focus and the world disappears. You have not told me which is the way I want to love you and which is the way you want me to love you, but you tell me I love you both ways.
