Oliver and I like the same food, share an interest in history, have the same obsession with Europe, smile a lot, and make the same inane jokes. Although he doesn’t listen to all the same music as I do, he looks a whole lot like Robert Plant, which is close enough for me. Unfortunately, I got to see him so rarely that I discovered only halfway through a relationship that  Oliver had actually dated this same girl. I probably should have figured this out sooner, but Oliver had at that point mostly fallen out of contact with the outside world. He stopped coming to school, and few people got to talk to him for a long while. But while I never got to be one of those few, a doomed mission to boost his spirits by paying his family a visit gave me a memorable window into his condition.

(more…)