Little Observations and Little Revelations

After a week of working hard and playing even harder, being in my element but also very exhausted, testing out my abolity to interact with new people and be in a group setting, I have made many observations.

Some things I am still processing but I will continue to share what I have learned about myself this week.

The first thing I notice is how much I have grown, specifically in my ability to stay emotionally engaged without taking things personally. When I arrived here in this tight knit community I felt discouraged by peoples lack of intrerest in me. I even realized that it had nothing to do with me and more to do with who is in the group and who is outside it.

I recognized people’s mood swings but I still somehow felt offended if they failed to greet me or seemed lukewarm suddenly. I had a tit-for-tat approach to relationships. If someone was suddenly cold to me I would not make any extra effort to greet or be friendly to them.

Now I behave the same regardless of how others behave towards me. Of course if someone disrespects, attacks or makes my life or someone elses life difficult, I will likely call them out or ignore them but I don’t let other people’s awkward streaks get to me, and ai easily forgive them for not behaving as courtious or enthusiastic towards me as I try to be towards them.

Sometiems at a party there are too many people to greet and if we constantly say hi to everyone we know it is too hard to maintain a conversation and (especially in Asia) some people are more passive and wait to see if you move first. Sometimes they are perpetually awkward and just have a hard time with things like greetings or they have mood swings and aren’t as outgoing as other times.

It’s all good. I prefer people be real than constantly trying to please others with a happy face if that’s not how they really feel. I do it too, although I try to hint that its me and not them. People are allowed to be tired and unenthusiastic when they feel like it.

I used to feel others should make the same amount of effort with me that I make with them but now I will make more effort when I am interested in being closer with someone. They probably already have their routine and their go-to friends or maybe they don’t use social media the same way or aren’t as actively social. Maybe they are busy working on a project or thinking about survival.

I no longer care if people don’t like me, as long as they don’t make issues for me. I used to be more worried about being cheesey or saying things that the community at large would disagree with. Now I only keep my opinions to myself when I know they are going to lead to unnecessary conflict or drama that I don’t want to deal with.

When people get overly philosophical or argumenrative I tend to keep my ideas to myself because I don’t enjoy that form of communication, but I don’t actively hide how I for fear of being disliked or not welcome in the group. Even if the majority of the group disagrees with me I can still find people willing to build mutual respect.

My goals are more about maximizing fun and understanding and my behavior is entirely oriented towards this now. I don’t sit and worry about how people feel about something unless it might actually create more fun and understanding and I don’t force it either. Not everyone is going to see eye to eye.

I am far more practical than before. Rather than focusing on what could ot should be, far away dreams, I focus more on what I can do right now. If the community has something I don’t like about it, I focus on the people I get along best with or can work together with rather than the people I have a hard time with. I focus on what I can do to make it less uncomfortable.

I don’t engage in gossip or take sides unless there is clear abuse going on. I don’t sit around complaining or engage in overly negative conversations unless the person is asking for help or advice.

I did notice a few things I need to work on. I noticed that I try to make myself invisible at times to avoid unnecessary conflict. This is good sometimes; even two days ago, i was hardly noticed by these drunk idiots who were really interested in my friends long beard. I had seen them beating a drunk guy in the station square and they often shout rude things at people. I’d rather avoid them and so I am good at that.

I notice I may become too invisible though, I sometimes find people hardly notice me, although it’s usually in a sepcific setting with a specific kind of person.

Western people tend to notice me less because I have sone mannerisms that fit more with Asian way of interacting. For example I rarely feel a need to give an energetic “Nice to meet you” or inteoduce myself immediately. I would rather wait for an opportunity to ask a question or make a comment, bring up some interesting topic rather than make small talk with a stranger.

Thanks to a conversation with @drrune (conversations with him usually lead to some kind of realisation or inspiration about what to work on) I realized that I have a hard time with eye contact as he suggested a potential connection between these things.

I don’t avoid eye contact because I am afraid of exposure, not consciously anyway. BUT i think i used to do this and though my fear of exposure may be much less now, it is more just the habit of not focusing on someones eyes which remains.

I am often considering many many things at once, not oit of fear of rejection but because I have a lot of experience being misunderstood and I would like yo be understood wherever possible. This requires a lot of calibrating to each individuals experiences, way of talking and world view. I also don’t want to fake anything and so I am constantly looking for ways to expeess things both honestly and without much room for misinterpretation.

This is especially important for someone like me who connects with many different kinds of people and cultures. But I would like to get better at doing this intuitively without moving my eyes all about while processing information and let the other person know that I am there with them in the moment.

This is just one of many many revelations this week. I will continue to share them as I process them!

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