“It seemed important to convey that I understood. Isn’t that what intimacy so often is? Supposing you understand, conveying that you do, because you feel in theory that you could understand, and you want to, and yet secretly you don’t?” — Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
understanding
“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” – George Orwell, 1984.
It’s nice to be understood. I like being understood.
And I also hate it.
I hate when people, whether or not they actually have, declare that they understand me. It makes me feel like I’m under their thumb, like I’ve somehow lost some sort of agency or independence from being understood.
Sometimes, I like how cold and distant people say I can come across as. To those I’m close to, I’m candid and fairly open. But, when I detect someone trying to crack the shell, I just throw another wall up. Even when I realize they’ve understood the most ridiculous and strange things about me and I know I’m flattered, I just can’t stand it. I feel pinned down.
That guy from my frat. I still haven’t named him. I promise, I’ll get around to it. I just can’t figure it out.
Somehow, later on in the evening, he and I wound up separated from the rest of our friends, smoking a joint and talking. I simultaneously impress and scare myself sometimes when I consider how natural inhaling has gotten for me, especially since I don’t smoke tobacco. I have a lot of things about myself that leave that sort of impression. One of those things is my bravado, which it appears he’ll never see the bottom of.
I just have fun being a little mean to him. I made him wait outside of a crowded ladies room for me to stand in line for a stall then fix my hair and makeup just to get a dance with me. I tease mercilessly. It’s just bad.
So, I decided to be kind and gentle when we were alone. Because ever since I was a kid I’ve been told I intimidate the opposite sex for one reason or another. And, because I didn’t want to completely crack the poor boy’s ego to bits; he’s a nice guy.
Of course, I still bullied a bit. He has a long-distance girlfriend from back home and, when pressed about the terms of his relationship, he gets a little evasive. This is something called a red flag in my book. So, finally, I poked, “what’s going on with your lady then, Mr. Fidelity?”
“We’re trying,” he shrugged.
“Trying what?” I asked.
“Trying,” he sighed, “but she has a different definition of fidelity than I did.”
“And what’s that?” I pried.
After all the assumptions I’d made about him being the one making some poor little unknowing girlfriend cry and get into polyamory, he was the one who had been cheated on. I felt a little bad for all the mocking I’d done. Poor kid had his heart broken and was just trying to salvage something. How could I tease?
Our conversation jumped around a bit before I formally apologized a second time. It wasn’t my fault, he repeated. He brushed some ash from my joint off of my thigh. “I don’t know how to ash stuff,” I admitted, “I don’t know how to flick it right. I was really lame in high school. And boring.”
“You’re not lame anymore,” he smiled.
We went and grabbed some 3 am munchie-medicine-food afterwards. I think we’re going to be friends. For real.