Connection
Oct. 13th, 2011 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trickykittyI originally wrote this on 9/27, but didn't post it publicly. Reading the first chapter of The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships and seeing so many similarities, I feel compelled to go ahead and post this now.
The number one comment I had from numerous acquaintances in my high school yearbook was, "You're a really smart and interesting person. I really wish I could have gotten to know you better." This is in comparison to the trite, "Good luck in your future! Hope to see ya around!" Friends, on the other hand, would write mini novellas on good memories of this moment or that teacher, sometimes remembering as far back as junior high.
I didn't realize exactly how many people wrote that same "get to know you" sentiment until some time after graduation, while reading back through all the comments. For the longest time, I didn't know what to make of it, and here's the reason:
Those whom I called friends understood that there was never much to get to know about me. If you knew I was smart and interesting, well, that was about all there was to me. My time was spent constantly doing things. As long as I was occupied with this activity or that, then I was a generally happy person. Being able to share those times with others was what I called friendship. Having friends stop by to talk with me during lunch time, that was important to me. I never equated "opening up" or "baring your soul" to friendship. I usually couldn't relate in the moment when friends were sad or upset. I couldn't feel it with them, but I could listen for however long they needed to talk. I guess for them that still made me a good friend, even if I wasn't connecting on the same level that someone else could. By that same token, any time I have been upset, I have wanted to work through it on a rational level and really only ever wanted someone there with whom I could talk things out. And talk and talk and talk. It's no wonder that I could never reach a finalized decision about my emotions, because, as I'm learning, not everything can be rationalized out. Sometimes it just has to be felt.
This is something new for me. I'm used to suppressing my emotions rationally, or at least attempting to suppress them.
There's a disconnect between someone who equates "opening up" with friendship and someone who equates "doing things together" with friendship. It works for kids, because there's not much to open up about. The changes seem to occur around junior high, when emotional connection begins to take center stage. It would explain a lot of why I grew further away from my regular friends. Emotional connections confused me. Actually, let me rephrase: the emotional connections that others expect me to feel confuse me.
In junior high, a kid got shot in the head when his friend tossed him a gun to look at, and he was comatose for a couple days before he died. He had been held back one year, so a lot of students knew him, but I didn't, and neither did my best friend. She and I were standing in line for lunch and she began crying. I asked her why she was crying, because I knew she didn't know him. She said because it was sad, and then she asked me why I wasn't sad. I said because I didn't know him. If anything, I was more angry at the waste: stupid kids messing around with a loaded gun that went off. If my dad had drilled anything into my head it was to leave the fucking guns alone (probably why I still shy away from them today). Idiots. Even today the entire thing still pisses me off. I had an emotional reaction, but not the one that everyone else expected. My discomfort was doubled as I was surrounded by emotionally sad and upset kids, some who knew the guy and many who didn't. I could understand it from those that knew him, and I wished they had stayed home to grieve in private, but when my best friend started crying, I was dumbfounded. The whole situation was distracting for someone like me who was trying to, you know, go to school. I was (and probably still am while relating this) disconnected and heartless in the eyes of those that expected me to be sad.
Now ask me how much I've cried when people I did know passed away, or when other bad things have happened in my life. It's not that I'm emotionless, but I have a hard time with connecting emotionally the same way others do.
The number one comment I had from numerous acquaintances in my high school yearbook was, "You're a really smart and interesting person. I really wish I could have gotten to know you better." This is in comparison to the trite, "Good luck in your future! Hope to see ya around!" Friends, on the other hand, would write mini novellas on good memories of this moment or that teacher, sometimes remembering as far back as junior high.
I didn't realize exactly how many people wrote that same "get to know you" sentiment until some time after graduation, while reading back through all the comments. For the longest time, I didn't know what to make of it, and here's the reason:
Those whom I called friends understood that there was never much to get to know about me. If you knew I was smart and interesting, well, that was about all there was to me. My time was spent constantly doing things. As long as I was occupied with this activity or that, then I was a generally happy person. Being able to share those times with others was what I called friendship. Having friends stop by to talk with me during lunch time, that was important to me. I never equated "opening up" or "baring your soul" to friendship. I usually couldn't relate in the moment when friends were sad or upset. I couldn't feel it with them, but I could listen for however long they needed to talk. I guess for them that still made me a good friend, even if I wasn't connecting on the same level that someone else could. By that same token, any time I have been upset, I have wanted to work through it on a rational level and really only ever wanted someone there with whom I could talk things out. And talk and talk and talk. It's no wonder that I could never reach a finalized decision about my emotions, because, as I'm learning, not everything can be rationalized out. Sometimes it just has to be felt.
This is something new for me. I'm used to suppressing my emotions rationally, or at least attempting to suppress them.
There's a disconnect between someone who equates "opening up" with friendship and someone who equates "doing things together" with friendship. It works for kids, because there's not much to open up about. The changes seem to occur around junior high, when emotional connection begins to take center stage. It would explain a lot of why I grew further away from my regular friends. Emotional connections confused me. Actually, let me rephrase: the emotional connections that others expect me to feel confuse me.
In junior high, a kid got shot in the head when his friend tossed him a gun to look at, and he was comatose for a couple days before he died. He had been held back one year, so a lot of students knew him, but I didn't, and neither did my best friend. She and I were standing in line for lunch and she began crying. I asked her why she was crying, because I knew she didn't know him. She said because it was sad, and then she asked me why I wasn't sad. I said because I didn't know him. If anything, I was more angry at the waste: stupid kids messing around with a loaded gun that went off. If my dad had drilled anything into my head it was to leave the fucking guns alone (probably why I still shy away from them today). Idiots. Even today the entire thing still pisses me off. I had an emotional reaction, but not the one that everyone else expected. My discomfort was doubled as I was surrounded by emotionally sad and upset kids, some who knew the guy and many who didn't. I could understand it from those that knew him, and I wished they had stayed home to grieve in private, but when my best friend started crying, I was dumbfounded. The whole situation was distracting for someone like me who was trying to, you know, go to school. I was (and probably still am while relating this) disconnected and heartless in the eyes of those that expected me to be sad.
Now ask me how much I've cried when people I did know passed away, or when other bad things have happened in my life. It's not that I'm emotionless, but I have a hard time with connecting emotionally the same way others do.
