I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of making things all about me. I mean, wondering if it’s something that I do often. I’m not silly enough to believe I never do it, as I know it’s part of human nature. I’m just wondering how often I do. It’s hard to keep track of because there are all different layers, right?
By layers, I mean that the issue is nuanced. There are the folks that cannot hear a singular story without offering some mechanism of comparison, and there are those who use the relationship between what they are listening to and their own lives to connect more meaningfully. For some, it can be challenging to empathize without first creating a tie between someone else’s life and one’s own. I think that exercise can be done as an internal thought bubble, rather than an external speech bubble, but that’s not always the way that it works.
I have felt a bit frustrated by the ‘I know how you feel because…’ situation recently and so, it makes me question how often I do this to others. Right? Like I know I do, but on how many occasions do I resort to sharing my story?
I don’t want to outright criticize the connection bit, because I think there is something to be said for that interaction. I think it is meaningful for people to connect through their shared experiences, good and bad. I suppose I just wonder about the threshold considerations. In other words, there is connection that is created that makes sense and there is that which makes the sharer question the interest and sincerity of the other human.
What I mean by that is that sometimes I’ve felt that the sharing normalizes the experience I’m having. I feel alone, singled out, rejected, and the act of someone saying ‘oh, me too’ makes me feel better about, well, nearly everything in that moment. There is also the kind of sharing that pisses me off. I might be sharing a story about a relationship or friendship I’ve had for ages, and the person is comparing my feelings and experience to one that is clearly not on par, or at least doesn’t appear that way.
Let’s put the brakes on for a moment, because there’s something that warrants exploration in the statement that I just made. Is it possible that even though I don’t feel like the situation they are using as a basis of comparison is level with what I’m going through, they do? There is no desire to diminish my experience or call into question the intensity of my feelings, but rather, they truly feel like what they’ve gone through is commensurate?
This begs another very important question or area of self-reflection, as follows: if I desire a comparison when listening to another human, does it make sense to pause and consider whether they will have a negative reaction to my comparison?
The truth is, even while well-intentioned, equivalent experience sharing can feel icky sometimes. If I’m telling someone that my grandmother passed away and I’m struggling quite a bit, it may feel completely natural to share that they lost a grandparent a decade earlier and they remember it being hard. This is a lovely sentiment, no? They are validating my feelings through their own experience. And yet, some very flawed human part of me wants to advise them that I don’t give a fuck about the grief they suffered a decade prior. What do they know about MY relationship with my grandmother? Can they really call to mind exactly how they felt in that moment, ten years later? And if they can, does their expression of past grief somehow blotto out or make less important the grief I feel now?
Do I not get to feel the full expression of my heartbreak simply because someone else has already been there and deemed the experience commonplace, and surmountable, and ultimately, survivable?
I know, this sounds ridiculous. There someone is, just trying to be nice, and I’m being such a bitch about it. I didn’t say that I’m “right” or rational about this scenario. It’s not about the logic of the thing. This is about the feelings I have and those that you might have and perhaps those of the other humans we are engaging with on a regular basis.
I would very much like to break the discussion up into a few different parts, because the topic is meaty and there are several avenues to travel down if we want to digest every single distinction.
The first personality or human that I’d like to talk about is the one who is so self-absorbed that they feel threatened or jealous when someone else is having an emotional experience. They must always be the center of attention, and therefore, the awareness of another’s pain and suffering, and the need for [yikes] compassion, breeds resentment. This is the deliberate relater. Purposeful in their behavior.
The second human is the one that doesn’t intend to cause harm but has trouble connecting meaningfully without relating the other person’s situation to something they’ve experienced or had an emotional response to at some point. This is the inadvertent and clueless relater.
The third person is the one who only desires to make the other person feel better. They can’t stand to see someone in pain, and they want to create a sense of togetherness and solidarity and thus, they share. It can be challenging to tell this human from the one just mentioned, but ultimately, the difference lies in how the message is relayed. This person is thoughtful and measured. They might advise that they don’t know how the other person feels, but…
The last human is the quiet listener who internally compares. This person might be more reserved in their responses and reactions, which can have a negative affect on the flow of conversation. They are contemplating how the situation they are hearing about falls in line with their personal experience, and while they are reserving an opinion, it’s obvious that they are choosing to disconnect in some way from the narrative being shared.
Wowza, right? Not easy to look at each of these people, because in the end, we have likely filled one or more of those shoes.
You know what they say, the first step is admitting you have a problem….
Xo
L.
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