There’s been something marinating (like a parasite I’m desperate to get rid of) in this gummy brain of mine for a couple of years now (all my life, in a way - that couple of years is, but also The Thing has been around from the start) that I’m really struggling to articulate to the people around me (without inadvertently antagonizing, which is counterproductive and then brings discomfort in different - worse - ways), in fact struggling to overcome "why bother" since in the trying, I've made things a lot worse, like a person previously comfortable (if unfulfilled) a couple rungs short of reaching the top of a ladder who takes one hand off to reach higher and can never regain their balance.
People who socialize idk, normally? easily? are very very bad at making space for people who don’t or who have different social / emotional needs. I’m not talking about grade school bullies, I’m talking about the subtleties of exclusion that a lot of adult culture - workplace and social and familial and everything else - is structured around.
There’s a type of “different” that strolls in everywhere seeming credible, giving everybody cheap dopamine hits, needing constant attention, herding everyone like a cattle dog. I don’t mean this guy (in order of worst case scenario to best: a narcissist, manic pixie dream person, or the less ultimately troublesome theater kid). They're not like you either, but you feel a bit empowered, don’t you? The confidence is contagious. (Careful..)
Then there’s the losers and geeks and the gamers and dreamers and punks .. (and - eep - incels, and nobody should be making space for that delusional toxicity - we can talk about Adolescence if you want, but my preference is to be awed at the logistics and the cinematography and episode 3! wow, and otherwise leave it alone) and all manner of other obvious others: the ones we patronize and the ones we find cute in small doses and the ones we appreciate genuinely but don’t know what to do with outside of their niche; the ones we’re in awe of and the ones that make us a little uncomfortable (if anyone does that to you, you do that to someone); the ones we’re stuck with (derogatory) and the ones we miss/missed (complimentary and/or complementary, but equally a raw deal). They have nearly nothing in common, all these varieties of weeble wobbles, other than this: they’re not you.
So who are you when you interact with someone whose rules you can’t quite grasp? who seems unpredictable, a little weird? who you don’t quite feel welcome around? whose comfort level you can't get a read on? whose gears you can’t see moving? (It’s a little unsettling, isn’t it?)
To me, that is EVERYONE.
Not “how do you act” around them (wouldn’t it be easier to just not try, just not make space for that one person? What harm would it do? Your intentions aren’t bad, but it’s tiring, eh?) But, WHO ARE YOU THEN? What does it elicit in you? Does your confidence wane, do you feel like you’ve been put in a little glass cage?
Is it hard to speak?
Does it hurt?
I’m asking you: does it hurt?? Is that what you’re feeling that you don’t know how to sit with?
Do you walk away thinking “that wasn't my fault” and would you still think that the hundredth time?
No, is the answer. If you were wearing that, it would exhaust you too. And you’d retreat for some healing - it’s crazy, when you remove yourself you’re fine. but then you have to go back out there. You have to. That’s where the money is kept. That’s where the resources are. That’s where the sunlight is and the food is and the things that you love. The places, and the things. That’s where the world spins. That’s where recognition is. That’s where lives are made, that’s where you exist. That's where your eyeballs have something to land on other than the inside of your fucking head. Fucking drag, ain’t it
(cue Ramones, “I wanna be well”)
You scream, or you perish. Every day a new choice.
("my future's bleak. ain't it neat?")
It's not safe out there, but you keep .. running .. out .. of ... resources
it's every zombie story, and it's every "cute rodents come out at night, but tragedy strikes if the humans catch them" story
but sorry normies; the virus: it's you.
