The thought that keeps surfacing today is this... What do you talk about? It is extremely difficult to maintain social contact when the people you are with are not interested in your life and the goings on therein, and in the people who make life bearable for you. In fact, there is a conscious effort to avoid all such topics even for casual conversation. So much as I would like to talk about my routine, my work, my friends, the wall of indifference makes me mute and I clam up.
Then how do you communicate? I am not let in on anything else that happens around here. I try to belong and I am politely but definitely signaled to keep off. There is a subtle power game, and I refuse to be drawn in. So I decide to keep to myself, visit people I resonate with and who at least are comfortable talking with me and my life.
But when I do that, there is more resistance. There is a basic absence of social decorum I am seeing too. Like you feel you do not really count; there is a phone call when you are visiting your family, and the call stretches to three fourth of an hour, while you are left with the TV remote in your hand. You really wonder whether it is because you are no longer welcomed, or is it because you are so much a part of the family, such social norms as just sitting and talking... really talking... does not matter. And like I said earlier... There is not much to talk about anyway.
Which is why I felt I really belonged when my friend whom I visited after a long time, kept saying.... I can't believe you are here.. After a point in your life, I think what you want from a relationship has to become more important than what you are in the relationship. I may be family but I feel just a tag. But with relationships I choose to be in, I feel I matter enough to feel needed. There are no power games being played there. It is just being in a comfortable space when you are not being judged, and are allowed to just be...
Then how do you communicate? I am not let in on anything else that happens around here. I try to belong and I am politely but definitely signaled to keep off. There is a subtle power game, and I refuse to be drawn in. So I decide to keep to myself, visit people I resonate with and who at least are comfortable talking with me and my life.
But when I do that, there is more resistance. There is a basic absence of social decorum I am seeing too. Like you feel you do not really count; there is a phone call when you are visiting your family, and the call stretches to three fourth of an hour, while you are left with the TV remote in your hand. You really wonder whether it is because you are no longer welcomed, or is it because you are so much a part of the family, such social norms as just sitting and talking... really talking... does not matter. And like I said earlier... There is not much to talk about anyway.
Which is why I felt I really belonged when my friend whom I visited after a long time, kept saying.... I can't believe you are here.. After a point in your life, I think what you want from a relationship has to become more important than what you are in the relationship. I may be family but I feel just a tag. But with relationships I choose to be in, I feel I matter enough to feel needed. There are no power games being played there. It is just being in a comfortable space when you are not being judged, and are allowed to just be...
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