It's currently 10:15PM. I'm about to go to bed... but I have something to say first.
We believe that the older we get the wiser we get, the more we understand about people, the world around us. But this is a fallacy. Because when you're young the world is small, and sure we grow, we gain more life skills and experience but with that the world gets bigger. And of course I don't mean physically bigger but our eyes are opened to things that we weren't privy to in our early years. And the irony is, the more you know, the more you realise you don't know. If our world view as an adult was the same as when we were a kid then yeah fine it makes sense. But it isn't, adolescence and adulthood thrust you into new realms where everything you thought you knew about the world all gets a bit more complicated.
And a big part of a lot of our worlds are the people who inhabit it. I'd like to think my experiences in life have exposed me to an eclectic mix of personalities and characters. You go to uni for the first time, you travel, you enter different jobs and in each stage of your life your bound to cross paths with people from unique backgrounds and cultures. Suddenly the world is a lot bigger than your hometown and you start to actually believe there are people out there that look different to you, think differently and have had vastly different upbringings. And it's amazing, it's what makes meeting new people such a valuable experience. You don't live in a bubble, if you did you could never grow, and I truly believe that all these interactions and relationships we build with people are what make us who we are today. So having said all this... why is it that I feel the majority of people around me make no bloody sense?
Now of course, the simple answer could be that I am in fact the weird one - which may be true to a certain extent. Look, we all have our quirks. Things that make us, us and things that maybe we cant explain about our character... "it's just the way we are". However, there are also things, basic human things which I believe would be pretty relevant to most humans which I have come to learn... are not! Here are a list of things that I have witnessed people do that I really don't understand:
Asking someone you barely know or speak to for money.
Consistently ignoring messages from someone who wants to speak to you but messaging them occasionally at random times.
Wearing jeans on a long haul flight.
Ghosting
Still watching the stories of people you've ghosted.
Someone on the NYC Metro asking if a 20cm gap between me and a stranger on a busy train was a seat and "could we move up".
Claiming you want to see someone but not making any plans to meet.
Walking your dog without a leash on the pavement.
Never wanting to message someone first.
People who play their music out loud in public.
TikTok
Of course there are a couple of jokes in there, but for the most part this list is very real and I feel very strongly about it. And this isn't me saying these things are inherently bad, maybe in certain circumstances these things can be explained but from where I'm standing I can't understand them. And when you can't understand something it sends you spiralling. The truth is, you can do something worse to me than a lot of those things but as long as I can understand it, it gives me some level of closure and ability to move on.
We are all wired differently, undoubtedbly things I do people won't be able to understand. A lot of the things I have mentioned above though actually comes down to communication, which is interesting because people love to believe that they are good communicators, They'd even put it as a strength on their CV but in reality we aren't all as great as communicating as we'd like. We all have flaws, avoiding difficult conversations, not being able to effectively articulate our points, lashing out. I'm sure we're all guilty of one of these. And doing something that is in fact un-understable (whats the opposite of understandable?) is insidious. We can't help it, we just do it for self preservation or selfish reasons. Or it's just ingrained in us and we just believe that it's an okay way to act and that other people should inherently understand. And maybe someone reading this can understand all the things I've stated above.
For me though, I am always open to understanding, I want to understand. As humans I get we can be irrational, but dig a little deeper and there's always a reason for acting the way we do. We may not always know why initially but the answer is there somewhere. Some actions don't need to be explained but its often the action of inaction that does.
I do think there's a level of self-awareness we can all obtain though to add some humility to the situation. If you want to act weird then at least admit that you're acting weird. Don't make the other person think their crazy for questioning your behaviour. Can you believe I was "seeing someone" and after a few weeks of them just not making any effort and not responding to messages I ask them "can we talk?" and they say "Sure, about what?". IT'S WEIRD. Stop being weird... sorry I mean be weird but own it! Jheeze. I get it, situations are hard, we can't always act in the way that other people expect us to act but just at least attempt to rationalise your behaviour to yourself and the person you are doing that behaviour towards. It's ALL LONG. And none of us have time for it in 2023.
Sorry - sore subject. Did all that make sense? Oh, also. I'm no hypocrite. If I have ever done anything to you that you would like an explanation for. Whether it was last week or last decade. Let me know, I'll do my best to explain. I don't know about you but sometimes I find myself craving these explanations from people and it's a real sad time when you realise that some people will just never give it to you. And these are people you once loved and trusted. And you think how is this person simply able to get away with making you feel the way they have. Unfortunately its the burden of relationships. This is a very bleak way of looking at it all but due to my experiences the only way to now cope is assume that people can disappear at any moment without a word. No one is for sure going to stick around. I think everyone has it in them to leave you when they feel like it.
What can we do to mitigate and deal with that though? If you think I have all the answers, you're greatly mistaken.