2023-05-27

• On the subway again. Time to think. One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is how I can make it hard to reach me in challenging situations. Like in rough patches with family, romantic partners, and close friends. One thing I do, that I think is often helpful and healthy, is that I often use time and distance to try and get a reasonable perspective on the issues. One lesson of getting older is that things can feel like a big deal at one point and feel less significant even a short time later. This is especially true in emotionally charged situations. And in those cases, taking time to ride out the big emotional waves independently of others can be helpfu. Specifically, processing alone can help me avoid the common pitfalls of being unable to meaningfully listen to others and center their own emotional state alongside mine. So, in general, I think this practice is pretty useful/good/healthy. Of course, there are tradeoffs, too. Taking time/distance can disrupt standard expectations from others about how difficult situations will be handled. I can end up contributing to a feeling that “this will never be addressed.” And, to be fair, I do get myself into situations where I don’t know how to bring back up a difficult thing after time has passed. That part, waiting to the point of “never” discussing a thing, is a real risk factor and something that I don’t navigate very well. I think part of the problem is that I get afraid of the perspective other people will bring to the conversation after time has passed. The source of this fear, as far as I can tell, is that I notice, in many cases, that the effect of time/distance for me is not the same as it is for them. For me, taking time/distance is about getting to a place where I can construct for myself a reasonable “what happened” story that involves all people involved being good people, doing their best, and still ending up in a difficult situation. The goal is, essentially, to expand my empathy. Without this empathy, I don’t think any conversation will be worthwhile. The hangup then is that after I spend time doing my best to build empathy for everyone involved, I become ready to share that perspective, and I end up receiving signals that others have not been using the time to become more empathetic. This leaves me feeling like a conversation is not worthwhile, so I end up not participating. And then it really does end up not getting addressed. This leaves me wondering if maybe I should change my approach here. Maybe the way I take time/distance in these situations is counterproductive, or should be changed. One thing that’s been on my mind is that I think I’m actually getting pretty good at identifying in realtime when my empathy for others is high vs low. This means I can probably lean more into taking the lead on having conversations about difficult conversations on shorter timescales, and that doing so is likely to be more successful than my historical/current approach. But it’s still an area of active thinking/questioning for me.

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