Some people it seems have interesting ideas about me and who I am. More specifically they have interesting ideas about how I feel. Even more specifically, they seem to have come to some conclusions about the “how” in “how I feel.” It isn’t even always the same conclusion, nor do they tend to be consistent. Somehow a lot of them end up being a bit extreme (meaning that I have either a lot of emotion or none at all).
One girl I knew a long time ago described me as cold and unfeeling, whilst at the same time accusing me of having a secret huge crush on her. Don’t those two things seem a little mutually exclusive? Either I should be unfeeling and not capable of experiencing said crush, or I have emotions.
The truth, as it usually does, lies somewhere in the middle. I have emotions, they just tend to be a little bit more internal than most. The usual approach I take to life definitely tends towards the pragmatic, which leaves some people the impression that I am cold. I hardly see it that way, but instead consider myself to have a kind of… unique perspective. Through many years of struggling within myself, I’ve learned to compartmentalize things very well; so much so that I am usually capable of removing emotion from many of my decisions. I think this is one of the reasons that people come to me for advice, because I can take myself and my feelings out the situation and make a more objective consideration of the options. None of this equates to me lacking emotions by any means, it simply says to me that I have a different relationship with mine than you do yours.
I can also set feelings aside pretty easily if need be. If it so happens that I develop feelings for someone that doesn’t return them to the same degree, or of the same type, then I can usually process that pretty quickly and then move on. I’ve always been able to be friends easily with girls I’ve dated, not that I’ve dated many girls at all; but still, none of the awkwardness, should there be any, has come from my side to the best of my knowledge. There is one girl right now that I took on a date, and she didn’t seem to want to go out with me again. Unfortunately now things are awkward between us, likely because she thinks I have un-reciprocated feelings for her, even though I have already put those feelings away and would have no problem just being friends. Sometimes I just want to go up to her and explain that I get it, she doesn’t want to date me, and that’s ok; can we just go back to being friends already? I'm pretty sure that would just make things worse however, as everytime something similar has happened to me that's been the case.
It also means that I don’t really get stressed out, which can be very nice. Also helpful with that is my firm belief that if you are doing all you can, then things will work out as they should. It’s all good all the time. If you can fix something, what is the use in worrying? If nothing can be done, same question, what good will worrying do you? If your concern for something brings you to action that is one thing, but I see little point in letting stress, or any other negative situation rule your life. You can choose to feel how you choose to feel.
One evening I was at a small dinner gathering (it was me and 4 girls) and I was asked if I ever cried (the question was related to a recent and fairly severe injury). My response was that I have been known to cry for emotional reasons, but not from pain. There is one episode of an older TV show that will just about always get at least a tear or two from my eyes, but those moments do tend to be slightly few and far between.
More recently, but I suppose this has always been the case to some degree or another, some of the wonderful ladies in my life have developed the impression that I may have a very large crush on them. I think I’m up to about 5 or 6 in the last year. Some of those ladies I did or do care for to a greater degree than most, and I certainly wouldn’t mind taking a few of them out on dates; but I would hardly classify my feeling as a “huge crush.” A friend and I were recently talking about many of these things, and we came to the conclusion that we both have walls that are very hard to take down and are quickly rebuilt. We tend to temper feelings or excitement or anticipation for things that have yet to happen such that we aren’t disappointed later. I think it might go even further with me, in that since it is so very hard to forge any sort of real emotional bond with someone, I can’t really see myself developing a crush like unto the ones people have thought I had on them, at least without some sort of precipitating event or some sort of relationship beginning to form.
I strongly believe myself to be capable of all those feelings, but I think those things exist on a longer timeline for me than most. Just as it may take me longer to become physically close to someone, it can take me a fair amount of time to forge that strong of feelings for anyone.
Maybe a bit of clarification is in order there. None of the above is to say that I don’t care for the people around me; I very much do. However, I think the level of caring usually has a long plateau that is hard to overcome for most. Perhaps one of the reasons some people tend to think I have crushes on them is the way I treat my friends.
I learned from a very young age how to treat family from my dad. Family is the most important thing there is, followed closely by friends. I will do just about anything for someone I call a friend. Well, I’d probably do just about anything for most people I know, even if I don’t particularly care for them. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll hang around them much, but if they have a genuine need, I will try and do what I can for them. What that sometimes means however, is that all the favors I end up doing for some people get misconstrued as interest; though I would do whatever thing I just did for just about anyone, interest or no. Some of those people have realized this, and perhaps some have not. I just like doing nice things for friends, regardless of whether or not I would like to date them. Part of my ability to compartmentalize means that I can separate “friends” activities and “non-friends” activities very easily, it just so happens that my definition of those things may be very different than yours.
Oh feelings. Why do you always have to be so complicated?
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