Of Friendships and Conditioning

Bloody ramen. I've spent most of today shivering, puking and generally leaking from almost every orifice in the body (how's that for graphic?) taking breaks only for bursts of unconsciousness (read: sleep). Food poisoning sucks. Really, it sucks big time. You have no appetite, you can't keep anything down and you feel like you'd just rather curl up and die.

Well, maybe not die. I hate food poisoning. Did I say that already? I hate food poisoning. I hate poisonous ramen. Gah.

Anyway. Conversations on Friday night after Troy (and Zsarina's thought provoking post) set me to thinking about the nature of friendships, and of psychological conditioning. Being a guy in this day and age, it seems to me you have two main choices: either you take the insensitive jerk path, or you try and adjust into the (now passe) Sensitive New Age Guy role. There is an elusive middle path (which I haven't found yet, but they say exists) which like all good things promises a "balanced" lifestyle, but I'll believe it when I see it.

So, on friendships and conditioning: For the first 20-odd years of your life, you've been trained to generally put your feelings on the back burner. Pick up after yourself, and don't expect people to just sit around and wait to hear you whine. This is especially true if you're a male. So you have feelings. So you cry. It's okay, just don't spread it around too much. These are the things drummed into your head day in and day out.

Suddenly, as you grow older you find that this inability to express your emotions is as equally destructive to any kind of social relationship you may have. People expect that if you reach a certain level of friendship, you open up to them. You're supposed to share and reciprocate when other people open their (insides??) hearts to you. Easier said than done, unfortunately. For most of my life, I've been the listener, and the doer. I listen, I plan, and I do. Life gives you lemons, and all that. So it's automatic. In my early twenties I first found out that this seeming inability to express my feelings or in simple terms "let people in" was hurting my personal and romantic relationships a great deal. I could be articulate about anything else in the universe from the price of fish to Schrodinger's Cat, but not necessarily what I felt at a particular time. I was, and to a certain degree, still am emotionally distant. Not intentionally, but it's something unconscious. Something I picked up a long time ago as a survival skill, and it's proving hard to let go of.

So what's a guy to do in the age of "EQ" and emotional freedom? How does one undo a near lifetime of conditioning? Is there a psychological switch you can turn off? Would a session under hypnotherapy be able to awaken the latent emotional release valve? Tough questions for a Sunday morning, but valid ones (to me, at least) nonetheless.

Which brings me to another thing: Ugly truths. These are the things you wish you'd never hear, but you need to, if you're ever going to improve. One ugly truth about me is that I can be extremely spiteful. Not in the put snakes in your shoes kind of way, but more in the I-hurt-you-because-I-can way. Case in point: It has been observed that I tend to make sarcastic, snide remarks about people whenever I feel threatened. These range from the simply acerbic to the unbelievably cruel. And this has been going on so long that it has become part of an automatic self defence mechanism. Whenever I need to feel better about myself (or if I'm feeling insecure), I hurt other people.

The scary thing is, sometimes I even enjoy doing it. There is an unbelievably addictive endorphin rush from the ability to inflict pain on other people that I can't even begin to explain. Of course, a harmful side effect of this ability is that lately the phenomenon has been getting out of control. Instead of a few choice witty comments now and then I simply do not know when to stop, which results in my friendships in danger of being untimely terminated.

So are these two issues related? My guess is they are. The psychological conditioning I've been put under for the last two decades have produced an archetypical Ash that is highly resistant to any form of emotional release. This pent-up anger and stress needs an outlet. And since I don't actually vent when I'm supposed to, it blows up at the most inopportune moments.

However, as much as I'd like to ease into the new, more emotionally open Ash, I do have some misgivings. Much of my best work has been produced when I tap into the vein of anger and distance I have within me. It gives me drive and stamina. So of course it's only natural that I am a little worried that if that core is gone, an essential part of myself goes with it. There is a shell I have created around the inner me (it's not exclusive, even girlfriends have had to suffer this) to protect myself from ever really getting too close to anyone. Some people have told me it's a natural defence mechanism, which I agree with.

So until I can find the elusive balance between emotional openness and still having my nice little private inner sanctum, I'll have to apologise to my friends (and the people who know me) because there is no time frame, and no promise I can give. Though admittedly most experiences will have similar shared characteristics, there are always peculiar quirks that make each person's evolution unique, and one that is nigh impossible to imagine (no matter how much you try) unless you've walked in that person's shoes. Being human, we sometimes unwittingly pass judgement (even when we don't mean to). I've had several lifestye/personality changes in the past 3 years alone, and though the latest one shows promise, I'd like to take my time on this one until I'm sure I'm who I want to be. Not for anyone else, but for myself.

Not many people can say they're who they are for themselves, innit?