Dancing with the otherness
“Did you tell him you didn't like his glasses? Did you consider maybe he loved those glasses?” — He asked as surprised as I received the question.
No, I have never considered he might love his glasses. That maybe, he went into a store and tried a number of different pairs, and thought “Ah, those suit me”, because how could he? How could, one person, dare to be different?
I would prefer to say it was in that moment that it hit me how uncomfortable I am with “the otherness”, but it wasn't until much later, in bed, when I couldn't sleep, that I figured my brain was frying over something.
I kept coming back to the conversation I had earlier, the one I was asked about the glasses. I thought how unbelievable it was that we had such civilized conversation, very comfortably, while being radically different. Since we were dissecting our lives, I've asked him about his wife, what was great about being married. He told me, with no hesitation, that he comes home to an extension of himself, there is no encounter with the different.
As I remember this fragment of the conversation, something clicks. I don't ever want to come home to an extension of myself. Not because “one of me is enough” but more because two of me will never allow me to grow. I return to the thoughts of the conversation, and I realize I appreciated it specifically because I was challenged, because of my encounter with “the otherness”.
That said, I seem to be blind to the otherness in many scenarios. For example, I might not understand how my words might hurt people, because they will know I meant well, even if I sound abrasive (They won't!). Even worse than that, I think I have a tendency to think I know how someone is feeling (I often don't!), and base my behavior on that thought. But it seems an obviousness that I cannot know what other people feel or think unless they tell me, and vice-versa, so why do I keep making those stupid assumptions?
I believe the answer is fear. I am afraid that I'm not equipped to deal with the other. I'm not confident that I can handle what might come my way. The thought of dealing (and responding) to the unknown is scary.
Writting it out like that makes life sounds like a dance. And probably it is, of some sort. And you know what's funny? I've always been anxious in ballroom dance. It's the most physical expression of interacting with the other and responding to it. Your partner give you a hint (a lead) of what move you should do next, and you have to follow. An easy rule. Unless you keep in your head, thinking “What if I don't understand the hint? What if I respond too slowly? What if I do the wrong step? Or to the wrong side” and the “What ifs” pile up until you decide you better try to anticipate what move your partner will try to do, and it works maybe once or twice, but then you guess wrongly and boom, you have to stop dancing and start again. Hopefully, you don't fall.
I think I do the same in my relationships sometimes. I try to anticipate, and understand, and theorize people, like if they were a phenomenon to be understood, and I forget the simple rule, the rule that would make everything easier:
You don't necessarely need to fully understand to love. But if you ask them, maybe they will help you to understand AND love.
