Looking Into The Mirror 2

Isn’t if funny how before you begin a diary/journal/blog there’s all these thoughts going on in your head and you think "I have to start recording all these down before my memory signs up for Alzheimer’s Anonymous", yet when you actually put pen to paper/finger to keyboard, all is silent. The Niagara of thoughts chokes up, leaving you floundering in the mudbanks of your mind.

Where would we be without windows into the minds of others? Today I read this blogpost and it triggered a stream of thought that has long bubbled along in the back of my mind. Whew, mental block begone! The post is about the parameters of friendship, but what I’ve got to say goes off on a tangent from hers and hence is only slightly relevant. But it’s (hers, I mean) an insightful read nonetheless, so do visit.

Most normal people cannot live meaningful lives without the company of others. An inner circle, a gang, family, sororities/fraternities, best friends, forummers, work buddies etc. There are also many who declare themselves as loners in describing their solitary status, yet despair inwardly at the loneliness. Normal wants, desires and defence mechanisms, all.

I’m not quite sure though, if I fall within those limits of normal. Heh.

Since I was a toddler I’ve had a tendency to wander at the fringes of social company. Even as a baby, I hardly cried and would just silently watch the world going by. My parents say you’d hardly realise that there was a baby in the house. Growing up, my only playmate was my brother, who being 3 years older, sometimes had not much use for me as a partner in mischief.

On my first day of kindergarten, I was twice caught in the playground by myself and escorted back to the classroom from which I had quietly slipped out in the midst of lessons. Mum was not quite impressed, obviously.

I never had a best friend in school, all the way to up to university, nor even needed one. I moved from group to group, never quite interacting given the lack of "inter" I allowed into my life, and therefore perhaps was merely"acting", more than anything else.

2 years of pre-university in Singapore produced no lasting relationships. Dutifully, I joined in the class group hugs (we were the non-Singaporean class, which appeared to necessitate much intra-class hugging, as if to prove a point), hostel sports and general Malaysian gatherings. Whatever support was required, I gave, but with increasingly characteristic emotional detachment.

Same pattern in the 3 years spent in a co-ed residential hall in Hobart, Australia during my university years. I was part of a group (a constantly sloshed one, I might add) for most of those 3 years and we even talked of attending each others’ weddings. My photo shoebox (I have a problem with aesthetic organisation!) is filled with group and two-person photographs. In my fourth and final year, I was part of the student union leadership (only in relation to international students). Yet, I left Australia with only 1 person
with whom I have maintained contact, and even then, very sporadically.

Today, despite having changed jobs 4 times in my working life, I keep in sporadic contact with only 2 ex-colleagues. Apart from that, the primary people I call friends are a small group whom I’ve known like, almost forever. And even then, I tend to keep at the fringes of their company, participating, but not quite fully there.

So, what’s been keeping my knickers in knots all my life, then?

Walls. I’ve had them up around me since god knows when. A few years ago I realised that the emotional detachment that I have is not so much that I refrain from investing in people (which therefore means that I can’t really be described as having a fear of commitment), but more that I have a fear of people investing in me. My life has thus far been a search for things/people that engage me, without me being required to engage back. Because the process of me reciprocating would necessarily mean that I’d have to open myself up to them. Selfish, I know, but there it is.

This is why I have always preferred to people-watch, to observe, to be an academic rather than to be in the thick of front-end operations. Similarly, whilst I am willing to help in getting you to where you need to go, don’t even think of asking me where I’m going or why I even wanna go there.

A long time ago, I was a Befriender (that’s Samaritans in UK). The catch-line was "We’re here to listen". I think I was pretty good at it, given that I soon became a trainer on how to approach one of the hardest call-types – the sex-calls. Many volunteers have trouble with these calls (where callers pretend to have a problem and then start describing their most lurid and graphic fantasies) because they, in essence, cannot detach from their emotional response (disgust, reject) towards such callers. It requires the utilisation of the ultimate in listening skills - the ability to put aside all your own prejudices (ie emotionally detach yourself) so that you truly hear the person.

My mentor (a senior volunteer is assigned to every new member), a very experienced volunteer and the most selfless woman on earth, was so impressed and so enthusiastically sang my praises (and I say this with absolutely the thickest skin) that I found myself withdrawing emotionally, even to the extent of dreading our three-hour shifts. It’s a real pity, because I really do look up to her, paragon of Buddhist teachings that she is.

A primary school classmate once claimed me as a best friend, to which declaration I reacted by disappearing, quite literally, as well as emotionally. The thought of such an emotional investment in me pretty much scared the crap out of me. Tsk. Obviously it’s a pattern that stems from childhood.

A final example. Let’s talk about my former boss, back in the days when I was a divorce lawyer. Now, the divorce business is an emotional minefield. Clients more often than not don’t give a rat’s ass about the legalities, they just want to cause as much hurt possible to the offending spouse/other woman/man. Anyway, my then-boss must have been doing it for far too long to such extent that she’s lost the ability to cut through all the mudslinging and tears and get to the problem-solving that us lawyers are theoretically paid to do. So, I was a welcome addition. I spotted the issues, I did the research, I plotted the strategy. She sang my praises and never left me alone. Say it with me now…over-dependence. Which is not a bad thing, when it comes to bargaining chips and believe me, this woman was prepared to pay (she upped my salary by 1k when I resigned, the mad woman). But at the end of the day, I was feeling suffocated by her.

I’d like to think that I’ve lead a relatively independent life, given my context. In contrast to my brother, I applied for pre-university and university and arranged the logistics of moving to Singapore and Australia myself. I’ve never had any material hiccups in my career. My parents think I’m relatively problem-free as a result of this independent streak. How wrong they are.

The 3 major crises of my life:- watching and inwardly raging at the dysfunctional marriage of my parents, enduring what to any outsider would undoubtedly look like physical abuse but was in fact an unfortunate result of a combination of zero-anger-management and clinical depression, and the certainty of knowledge (and resulting identity angst) that I was different in a manner that my immediate society had minimal tolerance for - all of which I lived through and coped with on my own. All by a conscious decision.

So there it is. I have walls.

They’re there to prevent people from looking too closely. To use the words in the earlier-mentioned blog in a totally different context, I don’t want anyone to "sustain an interest in (my) life".

Effectively, I tend to close off any possibility for people to be a friend to me in the way that I am a friend to them. Is that any way to be a good friend? As much as I justify by asking - isn’t it enough that I be a friend to you and that I don’t demand that you understand me - I have long suspected that no, this is not the way to be a good friend.

What have I got to lose, in letting more (other than happily-ever-after candidates) people in?

I’m not quite sure of the answer. Can’t quite explain it yet, but it’s expressed in on-off aversion to hugging and my internal battle in the face of an impending hug coming my way.

"Shit, it’s hugging time"
"Urk, Don’t. Touch. Me"
"But.. it’s what normal people do, so I should do it too. Eek"
"Ok, ok fine…………… here goes. Eeep"

I think it’s got a lot to do with shame. At what's behind the walls.

That's why I'm the only towerblock for me. :)

So here’s my compromise. In a medium that I know my friends read, I reveal myself occasionally, amidst the bits n bobs about Angelina/Nigella lust. I started blogging (instead of a paper-based journal) primarily so that I could engage in a discourse with myself through seeing my thoughts in writing (plus I’ve forgotten how to write!) and to provide a better understanding of me to those who are interested. The bonus is, if it gets too ugly or painful, you can stop reading those bits. There's surely enough lala bits to keep you occupied. And I never need to know whether or not you’ve read the ugly bits. In real life, we can continue with our lives without needing to acknowledge the emotions.

Much like not-hugging - I know, you know, no need to hug lah. Heh.