In yesterday's post I didn't even tell you about the nascent friendship Thing that was most on my mind. It felt too weird and vulnerable so I wrote about a coffee meet-up from a month ago instead. But here it is: I had an odd lunch with a friend this week.
We were on the retreat team together last month, and after the retreat was over I sent her an email. It said something along the lines of, "Hey, I really enjoyed getting to know you better during the retreat preparations. Would you like to meet up for lunch sometime?" It took a little back-and-forth to set a date, and then we had a weather-related cancellation/reschedule, and then we finally got together this week.
The whole time, she seemed kind of irritated. This could have been a zillion things, I know. Maybe the maintenance light had just come on in her car and it felt like ONE MORE THING for her to deal with. Maybe she's having some kind of friction with a loved one, and she didn't want to talk about it but also couldn't quite set it aside. OR MAYBE-- she was irritated because she didn't really want to have lunch in the first place. Or because, even though she had warmly assured me that eating outside was fine, she actually didn't want to be outside. Or because I had ordered online and she had not, so she had to wait in line and it was a zoo in there.
In my life I have been in situations like this a kazillion times. Other people get annoyed at stuff. Sometimes it's my fault, mostly it's not; annoyance happens. It just felt unusually bothersome afterward, as if I could have prevented it with a little additional forethought or perhaps a little less personal quirkiness.
I think the pandemic has recalibrated my awareness of other people's unhappiness. Sometimes when I am lecturing it's like there's a little alarm going off: THAT STUDENT IS BORED!! SPEED UP!! BE FUNNY!! STOP BEING BORING!! It happens in office hours, too: THIS STUDENT IS UNHAPPY ABOUT THE THING YOU JUST SAID EVEN THOUGH YOU HAD TO SAY THE THING. I feel more aware of the way that a joke lands, or doesn't.
This week in one of my classes I am talking about autism spectrum disorder-- about challenges with managing sensory input, and difficulties with making sense of other people's emotional states and responding appropriately. Just today I was talking to my students about how we refine our understanding of the workings of peer relationships by experiencing peer relationships. I'm pretty neurotypical, or at least I like to think so, but phew! No wonder people on the spectrum struggle with this stuff.
I suppose it's not surprising that I would need to recalibrate after so many months of connecting with other people asynchronously and through screens. It's as if I have relationship antennae, and right now they aren't really distinguishing between "light breeze you can ignore" and "gale that requires you to take shelter immediately." Here's hoping my antennae and I figure it out soon.
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