Today I turned on my phone to find I had a message from a friend asking me to call her. So I did. She is a girl who I was at university with – she was at my college and did engineering like me, and is one of my three closest friends from university.
Her news was that she and her steady boyfriend of the last three years or so got engaged last week. Now this isn’t unexpected – the two of them have been going out for so long now and have never had problems and are two of the most level-headed people I know. Also she mentioned to me a few weeks ago at the ball I was at (her boyfriend is the reason I went to the ball – he was the officer commissioning) that they had discussed it, and how they’d cope with him being in the army and so on.
She is fantastically happy. As, of course, one would expect her to be. As she should be. But I have discovered that I am as bad at sharing people’s happiness as I am at sharing their grief. I dutifully congratulated muchly and questioned about the ring and so on. And I am happy for them…in a way…I would hate the thought of them breaking up. But I…I just can’t identify somehow. It’s partly the ‘other people’s relationship’ thing where you just don’t really understand how it works. But with Sarah and Sam I don’t have that half as much as with many couples. So I think it’s mostly me…that somehow I just do not envy them their married state. Which is ridiculous. I would love to find the love of my life and live happily ever after. But I think maybe I simply don’t believe it’s possible…or I don’t believe it’s possible for other real people…or something. Maybe I just don’t believe happily ever after is possible in real life…and yet I know that if I were in a relationship myself it would only be because I believed that it was The One. And I’m certainly not ruling out me ever being in a relationship again. Or not consciously. Gah. I don’t know what I think.
But something stopped me being as happy for her as I should be. And I hate it. I hate this ‘bystander to life’ feeling that I get so often – as though nothing that happens to other people really happens.
I feel old and bitter this evening. And Sarah, if for some reason you visit my lj and find the link here and find this, I’m sorry, mate. I really am happy for you. It’s just me being weird. You know me. :)
I just needed to get this out somewhere.
14 Comments:
Were you like this before Buffy and Angel?
I don't recall ever being happy for people in couples...
Is it bad of me that I'm happy that other people feel like this?
I don't think it should be expected that everyone revels in other peoples' happiness on the same level they do. You can't possibly feel what they're feeling... you can just sympathise with that emotion if possible.
When my best friend got engaged, she rang me up from overseas bubbling over with excitement. I was happy for her - of course I was; I love her hugely, and she and her bloke make a fab couple - but I wasn't quite swept into her mood of joy. And I do understand that feeling, being in a relationship myself. So even if you've been exactly where someone else is, you can't necessarily grasp their personal feelings.
Gah - this is getting long-winded. I just think it happens to all of us at times. Sometimes you do feel genuine joy or sadness at goings-on in someone else's life, and other times, you just can't, no matter how much they mean to you. Feelings can't be forced... and we're all bystanders some of the time.
Rian should appreciate being a bystander once or twice.
Other creatures sweep me up in emotion.
Tis my own I sometimes cannot feel.
Really? Wow. I can never dwell enough on my own issues...it may be possible to tell this about me. ;)
boppet dearie, I don't actually think this is one area of my that your dvd impositions have affected at all. I mean I'm not expecting one of them to turn evil at any moment...
Also there's a difference here with just being happy cos people were couples. Yeah that's kind of tough. But I think I was happier for my friend when she got the exam results she wanted last year...maybe it's a question of what you can (at least partly) identify with. Maybe.
And daisy, no. Because you just made me feel better by saying that. :)
I am still waiting for someone to show me the rulebook on appropriate thinking and emoting. OK, the emoting one has been writen and can be found under sociopath in better bookshops. It's surprising how many people think that they are not doing what is expected of them. That's because the expections are exaggerated and somewhat hollow.
There is an interesting little theory about the emotional spectrum of people, with the poles being rational and emotional. It simply means that people on the emotional side experience the world through emotion, while the rational contingency experiences the world through thought. It doesn't mean that a very emotional person is unable to think, or vice versa, but it explains why people experience things in such a different manner. Most people would fall somewhere inbetween these poles.
Rian, obviously, falls firmly on The Rational Side.
...
*snorts*
I would obviously never consider myself bound up only in Thoughts, either. ;)
Hmm. Interesting theory, anyway. I will resist the urge to defend my emotions...because I know I often have to go through thought to get to them. And maybe that's what this is. I can't be happy just because she's happy, I need to _understand_ why she's happy in order to share it. Yeah. Possible.
Hmm. But either way it makes me feel kind of small and dark and I'm not sure what I'll say when I have to exclaim over the pretty engagement ring and ask all the excited questions and so on. Maybe face to face being happy for her will come more naturally.
Hey, I had no idea you were on here. will try to catch up on what you've been doing.
Sarah and Sam??Yikes. Did you also know Donald Stark got married, apparently to someone really beautiful in Paris?
Hey, I had no idea you were on here. will try to catch up on what you've been doing.
Sarah and Sam??Yikes. Did you also know Donald Stark got married, apparently to someone really beautiful in Paris?
Hey, I had no idea you were on here. will try to catch up on what you've been doing.
Sarah and Sam??Yikes. Did you also know Donald Stark got married, apparently to someone really beautiful in Paris?
Hey, I had no idea you were on here. will try to catch up on what you've been doing.
Sarah and Sam??Yikes. Did you also know Donald Stark got married, apparently to someone really beautiful in Paris?
Hey, I had no idea you were on here. will try to catch up on what you've been doing.
Sarah and Sam??Yikes. Did you also know Donald Stark got married, apparently to someone really beautiful in Paris?
Hey, I had no idea you were on here. will try to catch up on what you've been doing.
Sarah and Sam??Yikes. Did you also know Donald Stark got married, apparently to someone really beautiful in Paris?
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