Day 22

N said that he doesn’t tell people about himself unless they ask. Though an attentive and thoughtful listener himself, he’ll rarely talk about himself without the invitation of a sincere question. I told him I’m exactly the same. I will tell almost anything to anyone about me if they are genuinely curious. If anyone asks, I tell, as truthfully as possible.

But I don’t ever reveal myself to those who don’t ask. I rarely initiate the process of showing myself. I ask a lot of questions because I’m naturally inclined toward people and curious about each person’s nature. It’s a bonus when someone I find interesting asks me a genuine question because I probably want them to know me and see me too. But the effort I put into my answers is the same for those whom I find interesting and those whom I’m aloof about. I still put a lot of heart into what I say.

But I realised that I rarely revealed myself to those I wanted to, those I found interesting, those I wanted to be known by. So I have now decided to tell those people things about myself, share myself, reveal myself, even if I’m not necessarily prompted by a question. A necessary part of self-expression

N and I talked about the reasons why we are like this. I came up with one, and it was that I myself hate it when people burden me with talks that I find boring, which is fueled by my politeness, which makes me ask a few standard questions, and by an expression of attentiveness that I cannot erase from my face when someone is talking. For me, that kind of face, that kind of alert, listening position is a bit of a default setting when someone speaks. I can’t help it, even if I’m not interested. But please be assured that most of the time, I am interested.

It’s hard to converse with someone who does not appreciate or understand the complexity of human nature and individual lives. To unpack and reveal complexity to someone who is hostile towards it, let alone ignorant of its existence, is a mission. And missions with no meaningful outcomes I do not engage in because like all, my energy is limited and I can’t afford to waste it. In other words, it’s a pain in the a**.

Instead of trying to get someone to understand, I just don’t say anything because I cannot be bothered. The good thing is that those I want to reveal myself to generally turn out to be the ones who can understand! So I decided not to be reliant on their prompt to ask me about myself, but rather to initiate the talk myself with those I like.

A step closer to self-expression. Even if it is not welcomed, at least I tried, and at least I tried on those whom I admire. I don’t like them/us narratives; I hope this does not come across as one, but rather a genuine situation I sometimes find myself in. So here I share myself on my initiative. To those who would listen, and even if you don’t, I’m still writing, so I guess I am already doing what I set out to do in this entry.