April 18, 2006 - Tuesday
| 2:37 PM - "It's not always about you." I've passed along this bit of wisdom to many people since I heard it about a year ago, but today I realized I needed to tell it to myself yet again. Last spring, I was halfway set up with a guy who halfway wanted to date me, a lad I was about halfway interested in. Can you tell it didn't really go anywhere? One one of our non-dates I met a friend of his, who was very complimentary of me ("I was wondering who this GORGEOUS girl with ____ was!") and quite smiley. We spent some time hanging out together, chatting and giggling.
The next night, I saw her again. "Hey! You're So&So, right?" My question was returned with a blank stare. "Um...I met you through _____?" [beat] "My name is Such&Such, not So&So," the girl responded with what can only be dubbed Bitch Voice. I tried to remind her how she knew me, how she and I had hung out not 24 hours prior. She merely pushed me to the side and walked away without a word. I recounted this episode to Tamara a day or so later while we ate at a restaurant on Broad. And here I paraphrase what she said to me. "Janet, I mean this in the nicest possible way....And it's something I had to hear for myself too, because I've been in your position before, but...okay, I'll say it. It's just that--It's not always about you." Whoomp. There it is, kids.
I cannot tell you how much that HELPED, however. I know that we are all (or at least most of us are) self-centered, and this is perfectly natural. But it's not all about me. If a girl is treating me like shit even though we had befriended one another the night before, it may have very little to do with me. Maybe she was in a state of drunken oblivion. Maybe she had something else going on in her life that had nothing to do with the overly friendly girl who was bothering her that evening. Who knows? The point is, it was, more than likely, not about me. Today, Liz and I were talking on the phone about how easily someone can put someone else off through excessive contact, questions about status, etc. I'm being vague on purpose here. When one person in a friendship/kissship/family relationship is busy all the time and the other one is not, it can seem to the unbusy one that the busy one isn't paying her enough attention. I think of how one of my best friends, my dear cuz, gets her feelings hurt when I don't call her or write her very often. (Truth be told, she doesn't contact me too much either.) She assumes that I'm too busy to talk to her often, which is only partly true: I can't spend as much time with her as I used to be able to, but I still adore her and love her dearly, and I call and write when I can. But it's true that my life is a bit more jam-packed than hers, so I don't have time to worry about what she's thinking. On the other hand, she is often free and has a schedule that is amenable to long periods of wondering why no one has time for her, and this extensive time alone can lead to what I see as paranoia. (I.e., I occasionally must reassure her that my lack of phone calls is not meant to indicate that I'm mad at her. Why in the hell would I suddenly be mad?)
What's most dangerous is when couples go down this road. As we know, I'm not usually accompanied by a serious boyfriend figure (though these characters have popped up before). Once, though, I found myself in a situation where the boy I was madly in love with was down here, super busy with student teaching (he was a UGA senior) and working and partying. I was in my junior year at NYU. Two of my best friends had left the city and the ones that were still around were busy ALL.THE.TIME. I was unhappy in NYC, missing my boyfriend, and frustrated when he couldn't talk for very long and didn't have time for the frequent emails I had dreamt of. This imbalance caused numerous problems for us. Eventually, for this and myriad other reasons, we broke up.
So here's the lesson I'm trying to reteach myself right now: if people aren't giving me what I want from them, it may very well have to do with the fact that our schedules are different, that what life is currently demanding of us is different. I shall not read into my friend M.'s lack of attention for/to me as disinterest in our friendship--he's busy planning his wedding, for God's sake. L. has owed me a letter (or phone call, or SOMETHING) for months, as has P., and I'm trying not to get my feelings hurt as I remind myself that I, too, get caught up in things and am not not thinking of loved ones even when I'm out of touch. When other friends on AIM or Gmail chat (lord help me, sounding like such a nerd) tell me they're busy at work or busy studying and can't indulge my procrastination with a little silly online "conversation," they're not trying to brush me off and tell me I'm annoying. They're probably telling the truth: they're busy.
You see, it's not always about me. |
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| anna   |
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| George  |
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