(This is a post from my old blog, written under a different name. It’s only tangentially about books, but I thought it might be worth sharing.)
The acquaintance
Recently, I ran into an old acquaintance. We’d known each other for years, from various churches and schools, but we’d never truly been friends.
She was part of the popular kids during our teen years. I wasn’t. She wasn’t a “mean girl” or a bully. Only popular.
I wasn’t.
Actually, I was a bit of a snob regarding people I perceived as popular; I didn’t like them, had no use for them, suspicious that they must have compromised their standards to attain their popular status. How else could people climb the social ladder of success?!
So we floated in different social circles, never connecting except when it was forced on us.
My perception of her
Over the years, I’d perceived that even though we were adults, she was still treating me that same way. We talked only when necessary (almost never) and I perceived a certain superficiality on her part.
I loathe fake friendliness.
Pretense.
Artificiality.
Bleh.
So it was better that we didn’t talk, I told myself, because I would rather be around genuine people. Not fakes.
It didn’t help that we were both bloggers. Hers was a funny mom blog. Mine was, well, I wasn’t certain what. A mess.
We attended the same church, and comparisons felt inevitable. I didn’t initiate these conversations–I rarely discuss my writing with people in real life–but others did.
On multiple occasions, one woman told me that she always read my blog and the other woman’s blog through Facebook. Then she added, “Yeah, I really like her blog.”
Even years later, that comment smarts. It also didn’t help my perspective of my acquaintance or my perception of her actions.
The changed circumstances
Circumstances changed. Some changes were small: we were both older, of course. Neither of us attended that church anymore. Things like that.
Other changes were life-altering. After over a decade of marriage, she and her husband had divorced. She was now a single mom of three.
When we ran into each other, her friendliness startled me. It was genuine. She seemed genuine, too. I assumed the changes in our lives might have contributed to this.
I was right about that, but only that.
Truth #1: she’d been living a lie
Through yet another friend, I learned that the ex-husband had been emotionally and verbally abusive throughout their marriage.
It had taken all her energy to keep this hidden from others. Now that her life had changed, she could be honest. She could drop the pretense that life was fine and the oh-we’re-doing-wonderful-how-about-you? socially-acceptable answer to the horrible phrase, “Hi, how are you?”
There ought to be a law against this social greeting. Obviously she wasn’t fine. Her kids weren’t fine. Neither was her marriage.
Truth #2: it’s not about me
Flabbergasted. That would be a good word for my reaction.
Not at the secret abuse per se. I’d never liked her husband. I couldn’t see why others liked and respected him.
But I was flabbergasted at how badly I’d mangled my interpretation of our relationship. That artificiality? That perception that she was treating me like we were teenagers?
I was wrong. It wasn’t about me at all.
It was about a woman trying to protect herself.
I made a situation revolve around me and my interpretations. Yet it was never about me.
The novel
It reminded me of the novel Rebecca. If you haven’t read this novel, you really should. It’s a classic.
(Spoiler alert here.)
Near the end, the narrator learns her husband killed his first wife. Not only that, but he never loved the dead woman at all. The young second wife has misinterpreted everything during her marriage.
Her sister-in-law’s attitude. The estate manager’s manner toward her. Her husband, and a multitude of things surrounding his late wife Rebecca, who’d pretended to be perfection and was foul and rotten beneath the surface.
She hasn’t known any of this. Instead, she’d built up a picture in her mind of the wonderful life her husband Max and Rebecca had: love and devotion and passion.
It had been none of those things.
She hadn’t known because she was too shy to ask questions. Why? She felt inferior to the first wife, the uber-perfect Rebecca.
It seemed incredible to me now that I had never understood. I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth. —Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier, chapter 20
Truth #3: I had built the wall between us
Like the unnamed narrator of Rebecca, I had done exactly that. I’d let my self-perceived inferiority build up a wall between myself and the world.
It was built, stone by stone, from insecurity, from past embarrassments, from present slights, from future fears. High school experiences had been perceived through the grey cloud of depression. Those experiences became even more distorted by the extremes of bipolar disorder, the fickleness of memory, and arrogance.
Apologies to Robert Frost, but good fences don’t always make good neighbors. Neither do walls, especially not ones built by false perceptions.
The situation wasn’t about me. But it revealed my distorted and self-centered thoughts.
If I hadn’t built that wall, if I hadn’t misinterpreted her actions, would I have been able to see the truth? Or if not the entire truth, at least enough to see past the facade. The funny-girl exterior. The hilarious mommy blogger documenting her kids’ antics. The stinging off-hand comparisons of our mutual acquaintance.
In a way, I did see the facade. But I didn’t see past it. I attributed the reasons for its existence to a different source. Because of my perception, I didn’t bother to ask questions or dig deeper into her life. I assumed that my interpretation of her actions was the correct one. My interpretation centered on me.
If it hadn’t been, what would have been different?
I might have acted. I’d like to think that I would’ve done something: asked questions, dug deeper, tried harder to understand.
I hope I would.
Now I wonder how many other times I’ve misjudged people. All those things that I’ve seen as hostility or superficiality or some other negative attitude directed at me could be exactly what it seemed: hostility or superficiality. It also could be hiding personal pain.
I might never know.
But I can stop focusing on me and pray for a discerning mind and an open heart. I also have to be be willing to see that truth revealed, no matter how ugly it is.
How about you? Have you ever had an experience like mine? What do you do to prevent this?