High ceillings
After talking to A on Thursday, I realized that so rarely have I found myself in a position (at least in the last few years) where I’ve had to navigate conflict with someone I care about. In our time so far, I’ve acted in a manner that’s felt earnest and authentic to myself. There were no obvious hiccups or road-bumps in our interactions. Things felt easy.
In an effort to better understand her, I asked her questions that I knew were creeping up in terms of the vulnerability required to answer them. A large part of me wanted to play the role of a sounding board for her. I wanted to help her better process and understand her emotions since I knew that she typically went about it alone.
As the conversation continued, I gradually realized (and or was told) that:
- I was coming off as (and was genuinely a bit) patronizing
- Asking questions that challenge someone’s core identity and lifelong means for living and processing the world doesn’t come without pushback
- And also, who am I to project my ideals of what healthy reflection looks like? Especially when you know very little about the childhood and potential trauma someone might have had to cope with.
- In my last therapy session, my therapist mentioned that I might consider a career in therapy after my stint in tech! This inflated my ego. After unintentionally exuding a bit of “I can fix you” energy, I realize that I’m still just a mere mortal. I now appreciate my therapist much more.
- Communication is hard when you’re toeing the boundaries of vulnerability
- I was seeing emotions from A that were completely foreign to me
- We had grown close enough to where I had the capacity to significantly affect her emotions with my words and actions
- Granted, if you identified them on a wheel of emotions, you would see that they all fall under the fear and anger categories 🥲
- Seeing these emotions made me realize that there were many parts of her soul that I was blind and not privy to, but that maybe one day we might explore together.
I’ve been thinking a lot about intimacy and closeness with regards to friends. In my potentially contentious Notion page that I use to track my active friendships, I’ve been meaning to include a ceiling score to complement the closeness score I track.
I think of closeness as how comfortable and vulnerable and secure both my friend and I can be in our relationship; how many levels of intimacy we’ve reached. The ceiling then is the max closeness I think I could ever have with a certain person.
Friendships I made earlier in my life tend to have lower ceilings. They were born through proximity. As a long lived adult, I think I’ve subconsciously (but recently more intentionally) directed more of my attention towards finding people that I believe have high ceilings. There are, however, obvious gaps when I think about the deltas between the closeness and ceilings of even my closest friends.
Should this gap be closed in the first place? And if so, how does one close this gap?
I talked to L about this briefly, and she voiced that for her, the level of vulnerability and intimacy required to close this gap was reserved for her therapist. To most, I assume the reservation is made for their partners? But what if toeing the line and not being afraid of conflict and occasionally seeing friends’s spikiness to mutually scale the ladders of intimacy was normalized? What kinds of conversations would be unlocked? What new levels of understanding could be achieved?
It takes a lot of energy and intent and emotional regulation to navigate to the highest ceiling, but I’d like to believe it’s worth the time.
Anyways, yesterday was a fairly uneventful work day. Since I slept late the day prior, I was a zombie for the earlier half of the day until I managed to sneak in a quick power nap. The CEO organized a yoga event / recruiting mixer (for some candidates with offers out), so I had to flex my networking muscle to make sure that the potential recruits felt a warm welcome.
After work, I met up with L, L, and M at a Palestinian restaurant named Ayat. Despite being in the absolute middle of nowhere (deep in Alphabet City), the restaurant served some of the best Mediterranean food I’ve eaten in the country (possibly the world? I haven’t been to that many countries w/ Mediterranean food).
We ended up walking back to L and A’s apartment, and just sat in each other’s company for the rest of the night - the Olympics playing in the background. It's comforting to just sit among friends’s company some nights without any pressure to say something. I’m very grateful to have friends like them in NYC!
Today morning, right before writing this, I went for a 6.5 mile run to take advantage of NYC summer streets. I am very out of shape WRT distance (I might be doomed for November’s marathon). I coincidentally ran into L at mile 3, but otherwise ran the whole time by myself. I felt comfortable enough to run shirtless for the first time! (granted running among many other shirtless men made it easier to feel less self conscious) What a cathartic experience.