AT ARMS LENGTH
I just had a chat with someone today and being the person that I am (INTJ Personality), our conversation keeps on replaying in my mind. We talked about the person's feelings towards my company. I was not suprised when she said she is not comfortable around me. (Actually, she said, "nahihiya kase ako sa'yo." In a translator's mind, this statement is replete with implicit meanings and my exegesis is that she's saying that she's not comfortable around me.
This is not the first time of course that this phrase has been thrown my way; countless times actually! That is why this last time made me think that there may be a screw that needs a little bit of tightening or loosening in my person. I don't believe my personality is screwed up! :) (I know it was before, but Someone has been working on it and with major success each decade of life!)
At the moment, I don't have any hypotheses or assumptions as to why I have this effect on most people who are younger than me and sometimes even the older ones but I will try to give honest observations and analyze the facts as we go along.
Save God and Bong, I only have five close friends. Let's call them Friend A, B, C, D, and E. Friend A is like an older sibling who keeps me in line. With this friend, I can express my mind, my fears, doubts and joys. With this friend, I try to be something and somebody. I have this urge to impress this friend and I am also a little bit cautious around this person. I wouldn't say or do anything that I think this person would disapprove of. In my perspective, my friendship he/she could do without but his/hers, I can't.
Friend B is my sounding board. We know things about each other which makes it very easy to tell this friend most of my frustrations. I believe that Friend B and I are to some degree mutually dependent on each other's friendship but I won't tell this friend my shameful secrets even knowing that my secrets would surely be safe with him/her.
Friend C is once my advisor. This friend used to be like Friend A. Friend C was instrumental in my being where I am now. This friend's wisdom has influenced so many aspects of my life and my decisions. By a cruel twist of fate or rather turn of events, this friend needed me now like the way I needed his/her friendship before. Friend C could have been Friend A but will never be.
Friend D became my friend by the length of time that we've been together. We do not get much out of the friendship anymore (by this I mean, we seldom do things together nowadays), but this friend remained close to my heart. We do not communicate regularly but the warmth of the friendship always comes back when we see each other. Our friendship is that kind that is very relax and not very eventful but I know in my heart that this friend is someone I cannot do without. If I get to have more friends, the new friends will likely occupy Friend D's position. But they can never take the position unless D is no longer there. Friend D could never be B or A but might become E if I lose E.
Friend E is a different story. If I am honest, I would admit that I never saw myself getting heart-close to this person. Friend E is everything I am not (but want to be) and more. This friend is the embodiment of my dream personality: bubbly, humurous, self-confident, interesting, slightly dependent, friendly, etc. This friend actually became my confidante. Friend E knows things about me that I would never reveal to Friends A, B, C and D. In short this friend (kawawang ikaw) went beyond my myocardium. Friend E went to my head and back. This friend knows my deepest secrets. And because of this, I don't feel the need to establish that kind of deep friendship to any of my other close friends.
I have observed for some years that these are the key positions that 'friends' occupy in my life. I keep this circle neat, tight and closed. Of course there are a whole bunch of people who call me 'friend' (and truly they are) but my meaning of 'friend' here are those to whom I have revealed more than half of my life, heart, and soul story.
This observation would not be complete if I do not tell you that if I am introduced to five people, there is a 99% tendency that I will not remember any of their names. I would say my piece, smile, shake hands then my mind will go back to where it was. It is like a computer that goes into hibernation--when there is a distraction, my mind just close off with whatever it is processing and then reawakens in the same saved state not including any new event or process and so the tendency is that there is no opening for establishing new friendships because I feel that I have a complete circle.
What I am trying to do here is to try to understand why new people in my life get a sense of discomfort when they are with me. Probably the thing to ask is: "When does people usually feel uncomfortable around someone?" Possible answer would be: when they are threatened in any way. Am I threatening? Do I exude a threatening air? I hope not, but that probably is it.
Friend A is not threatened because he/she knows that I fear and respect him/her.
Friend B is not threatened because he/she knows I would never tell on him/her because we have mutual knowledge of/about each other.
Friend C is not threatened because I am his/her Friend E.
Friend D is not threatened because he/she has known me long enough to trust me. Time is an essence here and it played well.
Friend E is not threatened no matter the circumstances because in reality, we are much alike.
I am not disregarding or downplaying the attitude, character, and level of maturity of friends nor am I trying to stereotype people and put them in a box with exact and similar roles to play in a friendship. I am just trying to state my theory that different personalities treat friendship a bit differently but that there is something constant in a friendship other than just the different degrees of closeness. One can have five equally-close friends (the same degree) but the roles/position that these friends play/occupy in the friendship is specific and exact. And I hypothesize that these categories of roles/position might not be the same in all people but that it is not uninformed to claim that human friendship can be categorized according to the roles or position that friends play or occupy in a friendship.
All that to say that we open up or close off to people depending on the role that we feel a particular person can play in our lives. I think that it is also truthful to say that aside from being the right or civilized, humane, Christian or educated thing to do, our friendliness towards new people depends on our personal need of them or of whatever emptiness or unfullness we feel needed filling in ourselves. This is of course way beyond using someone to fill up our lack but I believe that by nature we tend to depend on someone for something whether we like it or not.
Of course I could have gotten all of these upside down or wrong side out. But I could have nailed it too.
What do you think?
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