open book

I have a book that knows everything about me. My girlfriend gave it to me as a Christmas present, and I don't know if she knows what it does. I think she did. As I opened it she gave me a look that I only really figured out in retrospect, and even then I'm not sure why. Does she think I don't know myself well enough? Was that it?

It knows things I don't know, though. I'm not sure how I know they're true, but it knows them. Everything I do, every secret desire that I have suppressed or tricked myself into thinking I don't have, it's there. All written in this very cold, academic language. All referring to me only as "the subject." It changes, or maybe it knows everything I'll ever do and somehow I never read those parts. I don't know.

I feel like it should at least help me in some way, but it doesn't. The language is dense and hard to understand, and it's not like it helps me to know about--hang on--"latent issues with gender identity." Even if I didn't know about it already. It just makes me feel like there's nothing I can do about it. There's a page about that, too.

She asked me if I'd read it yet and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say--"Yes, thank you for the creepy book that tells me everything that's wrong with me?" I just said I hadn't. She seemed--hurt. "It really means a lot to me that you read it. Please?"

And that seemed all wrong. There's something here I'm not getting.