Very often I wonder, why can’t relationships just be simple and straightforward. Why does interpersonal relationships have to be full of lies, avoidance, skirting around what is thought to be ‘sensitive’ topics. Sometimes I think I spend so much mental effort trying to second guess what the other person is thinking, feeling, intending, that sometimes I have nothing left for myself. And most times all the extra effort spent on trying to pre-determine what the other person’s reaction to a situation or words are all useless, because the results are the exact opposite of all that scenario running that I’ve done in my head. All that torture, just to realise that, at the end of the day, maybe it would have been better to just sit down face to face, and have a good honest chat.
It also baffles me how people are proactively plotting against other people, even those who have done nothing to harm them, just to ‘get ahead in life’. Why do we feel the need to elevate ourselves (in our own eyes) by putting down others? Is our society to such an extent that we are no longer able to feel honest joy for the accomplishments of others?To others we may even call our friends?
Even in love, things are complicated. Whatever happened to being honest about your feelings instead of being constantly afraid? We all fear rejection to some degree, but it’s my opinion that the fear is always greatest in your mind. Say it out and you might just find that the situation isn’t as bad as you expected. Yet, we are so frightened of the imaginary scenarios that we’ve played out in varying horrifying degrees in our minds.
Maybe I’m just naive, and think too lowly of the complicated human emotions. Maybe I’ve been living in a greenhouse, unexposed to the traumas of hardship and other such terrible things in life. Ironic that, as a Psychology student, I’m lamenting the complications of humans. After all, that is what makes human behaviour interesting enough to have an entire discipline around it.
I think I’m probably just jaded from all the games I have to play, just because society seems to demand that I play these games. I think this is also the primary reason the pool of people I actually call my friends has been shrinking over the years.