I'm trying to decide how to explain this so it actually has a chance to make sense...
I feel like every interaction I have takes place on multiple levels:
The most basic being just the words that are spoken along with tone and shifts in voice.
Following that is the impression that I get of them through the first level. This impression will be the guiding force that I use to decide how I react.
Now basically I see all of these options of what I could say to them.. but attached to each of them are not only their reactions to what I could say but also how their view of me will change. It's like having a mirror held up to your face that you present and whenever your talking you get to see the changes instantly.
Now imagine this in a social setting with multiple people and all of these strands flowing into you. Each one trying to take in as much as possible. You feel like you have multiple mirrors and as you speak a new face is presented to each individual depending on their values, mood and every other factor that you could think of. The worst part is you can see all of these mirrors surrounding you and the changes that happen instantly whenever you speak.
In the past this has lead to paralysis in a social setting. Knowing that whatever you say will cause a change in perception- good or bad. Just this complete awareness can be so overwhelming and its taken me quite awhile to get a handle on it.
Many will say that you should just be yourself, ignore the opinions of others but this is me. This is who I am and how I interact. To be myself is to be like this. Lately I've just been trying to block initial selection of what I should say and just spurt out whatever comes to mind but I still see the after effect of what I've said.
Sorry if this was confusing, I was just curious I guess and needed it to get it on a paper-ish substance.
No it's not confusing, I get you. I bolded the parts I really agree with. I'm at this exact same point and it's very weird for me to be self-aware of what I'm doing in this way, I feel like its unnatural and it makes me feel awkward in myself and with other people. I'm also at the point of giving a fuck/not giving a fuck so I will alternately plunge straight ahead without care of my perception and pick my way through rain drops. What I have tried to cultivate is being smooth about it so hopefully it doesn't show.
So I'm going to give a very long winded-example of this and tell me if it's similar or anything. I'm not asking for people to agree with me, I'm just showing how this plays out in my head.
"So how's your mother doing?"
I get asked this question every other day. I suppose that many people on my floor at work know that my mother is sick. I was gone for three weeks earlier this year and was on a three day/week schedule for six weeks. I'm pretty outgoing at work and people comment they haven't seen me in awhile. I know
most ask out of concern, not that this is keeping them up at night, but when they see me they remember and ask and I get it. Up until a few months ago, I would be one of those people asking if I knew a coworker I came into regular contact with had a very sick family member.
This spring I began to absolutely hate people asking me about my mother. I knew that either my boss (unlikely...she sits in her office all day) or my directors (highly likely) told people what was wrong with her. I've gotten some details of my mother's health repeated back to me that I know didn't come from my mouth. I had to send them an email asking to please keep my personal information confidential which I can't believe I had to explicitly say to them and I wrestled with that for weeks.
It feels so invasive...people look at me expectantly waiting for me to spill on them and the perception problem (and maybe I'm imagining this who knows?) is that when I don't spill for them it creates a tension in our relationship. This is an aspect of Fe I don't really like and I notice this has come from a lot of FJs at my job. It ties your hands in a way because you know how people will take it and I wonder would I be upset if they didn't ask, would I think they didn't care? Which way do
I want it? Figuring that out helps me to know how to respond as well.
This situation has totally caused me to question my "friendliness" and if I've led people on to having more depth than what I want. I've had to tell two people who yes, I've hung out with many times on the weekend and after work, gone shopping with, had really great conversations with, that I would consider friends in the broad sense of the definition that I don't want to talk about my mother with
them. The moment when I just came right out with it, after I tried several times to politely dodge or change the subject over a period of months, I watched their faces fall and I knew things would just go south. I have nothing against them, they're great people, I like hanging out with them. But the relationship isn't like that. Believe it or not, I don't like to have friends just for a numbers game. When you can pinpoint no exact reason why you don't want your friendship with certain people to deepen you end up looking like the bitchy one, like someone extend a helping hand to you and you swatted it away. That causes me a sort of paralysis in dealing with people because it adds yet another fraught layer to relationships. Can I chill with the person and not have them think we're going to be BFFs? Why can't you just be satisfied with the relationship existing where it's at?
I have the people that I want to talk to about my mother and how I
feel and it feels gawky to have an understanding of why the other feels betrayed in some way, thinking one thing about the nature of our friendship and then I have to throw the curtain up about how it really is.
And then it's maddening for me as well. Isn't it my prerogative who I reveal myself to? I have no obligation to spill my heart to people. I don't blame people because I consider myself a pretty open person, I don't have secrets to keep. So while I'll reveal something about myself that I think of as trivial, I'm realizing that other people may never say that in a group and it probably looks like I'm revealing really private stuff about myself. But when it's something I feel is truly personal, nothing I want to talk about except for a few select people, I feel like I've misled those who know what's going on but I haven't opened up to.
It's awkward to watch people wait for the outpouring that never materializes. I remember I bumped into a coworker in the bathroom (Bathrooms are dangerous!) and she asked that dreaded question, and I said something like she's getting better, thanks for asking and smiled and said I'd see her later. I opened the door to leave thinking the conversation was over and she followed me out and restarted the conversation again. What you talked about kicked in: is she genuinely concerned, is she nosy, does she have something to share/advice but wants me to "invite" it before she just gives it, does she want to comfort me, why did she continue a conversation I obviously ended, how can I get out of this conversation gracefully with no hard feelings and communicate I appreciate her concern, how much of an artful dodger can I be without seeming dismissive? These thoughts fly through my mind within a matter of seconds.
What I've found helpful is trying to figure out why I don't want to reveal myself to people who have shown themselves to be friendly and seem interested about me and not judge it against myself. Once again, I go back to it being my choice, I'm not obligated to expose myself just because I'm getting a push to. I have a boundary, but figuring out why the boundary is there works some of the kinks out in my mind. I don't really question the boundary, it's there, it's me, I do it and I have no problem with it because I've stayed out of a lot of drama because of it. Often I'm reacting to the person on some unconscious level and later on something happens for me to think, wow, it was a good thing you didn't go there with them.
Eesh, my fingers hurt.