On Ghosts and Ghosting
Thinking of the actual severity of my social ineptitude and how these years of self-imposed isolation have only served to worsen the problem and increase the breadth of that felt gulf between myself and others - an other, any other! The perceived desperation felt in my authenticity, sputtering out confessions in the hope they inspire the reciprocal emotional depth and vulnerability that part of me seeks so desperately through the grit tooth politeness and small talk niceties I have such difficulty maintaining convincingly. This tendency to quickly take the interaction deeper, into territories of personal and emotional vulnerability, is sometimes seen as refreshing, endearing, or disarming, but, more often than not, is seen as inappropriate and off-putting, repellant, especially in those who would not wish to go to those places or reciprocate on that deeper, more personal level. I can, of course, attribute this inappropriate level of sharing, Señor TMI-style, to being born and only barely raised as an only child. I was given space, permitted time alone for days, seen as nearly mute, socially-awkward, and strange, by my parents and, subsequently, by the classmates of kindergarten through 4th grade, who so harshly bullied and beat me severely for it, nearly daily, through those most formative years. Strangely, it was those students who I’d personally felt closest to, or formed a relationship with through sleepovers, birthday parties, and even family vacations with, who most savagely beat and alienated me publically - often coming to my house, later that same day, to play together. This pattern, in many ways, of the individuals I most try to connect with personally finding me the most repellant, treating me with the most severe, often jaw-droppingly surprising and embarrassing public acts of contempt and exclusion of me, in academic, personal, a and professional relationships I’ve attempted to form, has only served to push me further and further away from others. My longing for that reciprocal level of truth and authenticity from others, even now from the self-imposed physical distance and emotional distance of texting vulnerability to those I have felt closest, induce only long columns of unanswered confessional essays, whole lists of friends who have written me off, ghosted me, uninterested in contending with the complexity and inappropriateness of those vulnerable confessions. This could be understood more theoretically in terms of ego boundaries and a kind of invasiveness felt by others by my seeking depth, especially in the asking of personal questions, seeking some reciprocation for the effort I am investing into, as best I know how, forging a deep and meaningful relationship with another. It is deeply painful and simply emotionally exhausting to be rejected, ghosted, and socially severed by so many! The choice to give up, in this perspective, was not even made by me, only adopted by me in response to being given up on! It was only after being severed that I would leave these peoples homes, cities, and lives, dejected and seeking the solace and emotional and expressive freedom I was once able to draw from my solitude. And it is from this rich personal solitary life, and the depth of its explorations, that I can only reason that spirit entered, to fill that void, and form their relationships with me where none existed socially or, rather, physically.