May 14th, 2009
Empathy, sympathy... ugh, whatever.
You know what's ironic? Sometimes someone who is really kind, decent and sympathetic, and who says, "Tell me. Confide in me. I am a good listener. You need to talk about your problems! Try me, I have big shoulders. I will understand." can be the most stressful person to have around when I am at the end of my tether. The problem is, then I have to manage his feelings as well as my own -- if I don't want to talk, he will feel rejected, or he'll feel like a failure, or whatever. I actually slept at my mother's house last night instead of at my own flat simply because I did not want the stress of having to arrive at this building and then have a knock at my door and have to deal with someone else's invasive but well-intentioned and heart-felt concern for me.
What would have worked for me just fine would have been to play chess with some guy who doesn't know me well. In fact, I was going to play chess with one of my neighbours who has been keen to do so for a long time, but then my sympathetic friend would probably have arrived here and wondered why I chose such nonchalant company instead of having him who cares for me so deeply cooking supper for me, which he'd offered to do. So I just avoided the whole complicated thing by leaving town. I just didn't have the energy to explain it all.
I would like to thank my friends, the Wizard and the Princess, for the numerous occasions when I was feeling particularly frazzled and they invited me to join them for the day. Thank-you for not suggesting that I talk about my problems, but for allowing me to ramble on when I chose to do so anyway. Thank-you for laughing at my jokes. Thank-you for the hours upon hours of trying on clothes which we didn't really need, for gossiping, and for that exceedingly stupid video which you rented when I did not have the emotional capacity for watching the portrayal of anything resembling genuine human sentiment.
I would also like to say a special thank-you
to my friend The Wallflower, for an SMS which he sent me one night long
ago when I was feeling miserable and frustrated. "I just want to complain,"
I'd told him, "I don't want anyone to actually do anything."
"Kla soveel as wat jy wil," he replied, "Ek sal net mooi
niks vir jou doen nie."
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you to my friends for all the great, deep, and intense things which they have not done for me when I needed them not to!