The entire point of human relation is to be known. We each seek to be seen understood and then embraced from what the other person knows and understands. Whether we look for it in romance , in friendship, within family…there’s a part of us that craves to be completely and utterly known. I think Chimanda wrote a whole book about it in Dream Count.
Naturally, it’s a let down when someone despite being close to us draws a conclusion about us that is very far from who we are. And this reveals itself in very innocent moments; a course of action that they assume you will take, a “joke”that they think you will find funny, a movie that they recommend to you. You find yourself asking “which part of me suggests I want any of this?” “What opinion of me do you have that makes you think I would like abc”. I suppose this can be forgiven. It’s just apathy after all.
But there’s an even darker way of not knowing someone. Story time. A couple of years ago, I was trying life with a human male (lizabatshiya kuphela kwelinye ilanga). He asked my opinion on something (his) work related. I gave it, best I knew how. This man turned to me and said “you know you don’t have to be so competitive all the time.”(When I tell you my biggest heartbreaks have been so tragically silent) Me? Competitive? Over something I have no investment in?
Two things happened in that moment. 1. I realised that a very strange version of me lived in his head. This person didn’t know me. And this wasn’t an “I don’t know what gift to get you” not knowing. This was a complete misreading of me as a person. A failure to recognise my character. Am I competitive? 100 percent. Am I so competitive that I would compete with my partner over something that has absolutely nothing to do with me? You think I would get up in the morning. Shower. Dress up. Just to hurt you? To what end? For whose benefit? So that what happens? Angihlanyi guys.
Not only did this person not know me, they thought the absolute worst of me. Which led me to 2. If this was who he really thought I was, why was he with me> I wouldn’t be with someone I thought was a bad person. In that moment, my respect for that person vanished almost immediately. Because justify to me how you are trying to build your life with someone that you think would be in competition with you. Wenzani umdala?
This is a feeling that I get a lot in moments when I realise the other person is perceiving me wrongly. If you perceive honesty to be cruelty , or a parent’s protection to be control or if someone communicating a boundary to you is synonymous with them picking a fight and not establishing an environemt for th relationship to grow, you are the problem. If this is who you really think the person that you love is, then I am judging you for staying in that relationship with them. Because that means, in a situation where you had to commune with a person like the person you think they are, you would be fine with that?😮 Soze. I am judging!
The oversharing is done, I promise. But I overshare to remind you that it is important to be surrounded by people who know the essence of who you are. People whose opinion of you is atuned to who you know yourself to be. People who assume the best of you, who know your heart, who know what you are and aren’t capable of. Because on days when your actions are not the best,your character should speak for you. And it can only speak to people who know it.
I lost my phone for a few hours earlier in the year. In my frustration I was unkind to my mother. She did not hold it against me because she knows me. She knows who she raised. And in that moment, my actions were absolute garbage but she chose to rely on the character she knew. Now, imagine if this had happened with SaCompetition😒
It’s also important to be around people who know you for when you reach rock bottom. Only a person who knows you can get you out of that place because they know how to resource you. Imagine me having the worst day of my life and you tell me that everything is going to be okay 😂😂.
Have you met me? When I am in crisis mode I need solutions. Some people need to be left alone, others need to be told that it will be fine (although how?), others need to be in denial. But only those who truly know you will know what you need.
It’s such a sadness not to be known. To have to translate yourself every time. We talk a lot about not caring what other people think of us. Yeah, but that’s for Agnes down the road. Not the people we invite into our lives, not the people we share ourselves with.
And I am sure there are instances where my perception of the people around me has also been weird. I am not immune to this. But I try to assume the best of the people that I love…to a point. Sometimes, that muscle atrophies and you can no longer see the best in someone, or they can’t assume the best of you. In those times, sometimes it’s okay to call it a day.
