I have made a joke on Facebook about liking cake more than I like most people. It's the truth sometimes and reality is that I am a user. I use people for what they bring to the relationship and quite honestly I keep an emotional distance from people. Most of that is simply due to the fact that I my emotional spectrum is usually limited. I love my wife and my daughter, but honestly I struggle deeply with developing emotional connections with many other people.
I just moved away from the few friends I had in Kenosha back in October and quite honestly I didn't feel a thing about it and personally the lack of feeling there bothers me, but I really don't know how to change it and I don't really care to. I'd rather live bothered that I don't care than bother to change it and most of that is due to functionality because when I allow those emotions to come into play I am nearly useless.
I could tell you the logical answer that I have been told from "experts" in the field: I over invested emotionally when I was a kid and the let downs from those emotional investments cut deep enough that I choose to withdraw rather than feel those emotions again. So what does that do for me now? I don't have a time machine to go fix that so that is about the most useless thing people have ever said to try and help.
I guess that could be true, but honestly it's not a cognitive decision for me. I hang out with people. I have a good time. When it's over, it's over. So what? Does that mean that I am going to be upset if I don't see you again? Maybe/ Maybe not. It's things like that in my emotions that make me hate myself every once in a while.
The hypocritical part about all of it is that all the while I realize that these emotions are offensive to some people and I would be equally offended, I still feel that way and don't change that. I made a comic about how people clean their friend's list and how it must be weird to do that in real life, but reality is that it's much simpler than that. I move away. I don't talk to you anymore.
I think my problem is that I don't really know how to make friends that well. I talk way too much and I interrupt people unknowingly, but really I just want people to like me and I don't really know how to do that. When I am speaking I hope people agree with what I have to say because I know that having similar opinions usually aligns people. I keep talking because I really want to solidify the common interest there and I always feel like I'm gaining respect. In my mind I don't emotionally care about their story, but I am collecting data and comparing against other experiences almost on a conscious level, and it empowers me to make larger connections. It's what allows me to make statements about people that they probably didn't think I knew. I assume that people then want to hear as much as they are giving out. I am talking and talking and I don't realize the point where it turns from, "Wow this guy has a lot of interesting things to say" to, "Wow this guy doesn't know when to shut up."
Quite honestly, if you are able to read this, you have probably wished several times in a conversation with me that I would just shut my mouth. Don't feel bad about it - I talk too much. It's a cover for the fact that I really don't have the ability to connect with you emotionally on the same level that you can. I won't realize when I have talked too much, so please interrupt me. I probably won't even notice, but I do notice when you walk away disinterested. I do notice when everyone else is getting together and I am not invited. Those are the things I'm trying to avoid when I am talking too much. I never learned the power of silence so please have a little mercy.
Ideally I could live in a countryside home, listen to music, stare out the window at God's beautiful creation and feel more emotionally connected than by hanging out with friends. My wife and my daughter give me a feeling that the world is actually a better place. My wife is able to see through all of that lack of emotion to who I really am and while I cannot imagine the frustration I bring to her daily, she struggles through that because she cares for me that much. My daughter is too young yet to be corrupted by anything like this, and as a father I rue the day someone hurts her feelings because I am such an emotional cripple myself. She is well accepted by large groups of people, and that is a huge blessing from God.
I can connect more emotionally with music and that's why I love music so much. As I am writing, the song "Nothing Left To Say / Rocks" is playing. I could care less about the lyrics because the actual mood of the song is 100% the emotion that I am feeling. The only problem is that those feelings are not translated by other people in the same way. I could play the song for you and none of you would say, "I know what you mean." You would simply look at me like I'm crazy. I hear the song and I think about sitting in my room as a kid with nothing to worry about. I'm watching a sunset over a ripe harvest of corn and the reflections are hues of yellow, orange, brown and red. The sky burns in orange and white to the west and feigns in blue and purple to my back. I can feel the cool on my back and the warmth on my face and it's relaxing. The silence of this place is unmatched which is ironic in itself because without the music this place wouldn't exist.
Now that I realize that I have rambled much too far and if you are still reading this you are probably like, "man when will this guy shut up." If you aren't thinking that, then you probably simply looked at this blog and skimmed because you looked at it like, "man, this guy always talks too much." Really, most of my friends probably wouldn't read this on their best day anyway...so with that I'll end this blog
You always have interesting things to say, and no I didn't skim over it, I read the whole thing :) (don't ask me to say that about reading Lord of the Rings though... my eyes totally glazed over, still haven't finished that first book. >_>)
ReplyDeleteI guess I've never saw you as someone who talked to much, but I'm also not sure if I ever told you my first impression of you either. When I first met you (the first time my memory really saw you and registered it) Was in art class with Dee, I was intimidated by you, your artistic talent and what I perceived as confidence. You angered me because you had something I didn't see in myself and for a long time I was frustrated with you, but that changed over the time we got to know each other.
I would say you aren't the only one who has a hard time with your emotions, I have a hard time honestly saying "I miss you" and by that I mean that feeling that people seem to get when they long for others. I would love to feel it more often than I do, but the truth is I learn to live without people, and some people don't get it.
WHile it's not the same as your music mood, I use music in a similar way for me feelings come out strongest when I have music to express them, I will repeat a song 100 times in a day just to relive that feeling in my mind, a feeling of courage, of sadness, of hope, of longing, of frustration, of confusion until I'm sick of it and sometimes it doesn't happen for a long time. In the song I can travel not into reality but into a fantasy, and sometimes into nothing and no-where.
I don't find that you talk much, but maybe that is because we both share the problem of talking to much! I'll keep yammering my big mouth long after the person is sick of hearing my words and so people get angry at me, though all I really want to do is help and my words I've found are the only way I seem to be able to help, though I'm trying slowly to learn silence as well. I find it easy to let people go, and yet there are parts of me that want to hold onto them, I lack empathy and sympathy towards others and can be harsh and exacting.
I'd never say you were crazy, sure a bit strange, but aren't we all in the end?
I appreciate the comments. I never felt like I was the only person like me out there. I think the vast majority of people I am friends with wonder why I talk so much or why I am not good with just being quiet when something happens and I have an opinion. I personally think your devotion to art is much better than having a "natural" knack for it. I'm so not disciplined with any of that.
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