Let’s talk!
“Hey! What happened? Is something wrong?”. “No, I am just curious to know what’s going on with you. So tell me all about it!”.
Curiosity is just another name for taking interest. Curious about something, start talking. It was hard to start a conversation for me as I am not very good at initiating stuff so I just dove right in. It is like there is a glitch in our minds, whenever a friend or a family member starts to talk about us instead of themselves and exhibit emphatic behavior towards us we often misunderstood it as not being genuine or we take it as a joke. This same thing happened to me when I tried to be interested in my friend’s life. It continued to amaze me. Read what happened next.
He uttered, “To start with, my midterm just ended and I have got a free day to enjoy after, this day which I am spending with you not enjoying apparently. This is it, that is all I have”. “Okay so this was getting harder”, I thought. I decided to continue until I get something to write about. “I have a couple of questions for you, and you cannot skip any of it…”. He stopped me in between with utter disappointment saying, “Wait, wait, wait, I told you my mids just ended I don’t want to do this, lets hangout outside”. I begged him, “Please do this for me… we will hangout after”. “Okay, but remember this, it will be two way! Whatever you ask me, you will be answering it yourself later. Deal?” “Deal!” I said. Only he can turn boring into borderline fun. “Fine lets get started!”
It took me sometime to convince him that I am not goofing around. Couple of questions later he started opening up. Strangely, I felt uncomfortable when he was being genuine. I started questioning my questions to see if they are not crossing any line.
He told me all about his day and I told him about mine! “It was super boring Zaka (referring to the author), No netflix, No internet, I didn’t know what to do. Then your message popped up in my notifications. So I said okay lets get together.” He was coming along finally. I asked him about his parents and sister, He answered casually. It seemed on track no hard questions, just right answers until I started digging deeper. “How were you feeling all day before you got my message”, “I told you already, it was boring”. He gave me nothing. “This is your last semester what are you planning afterwards”, “Thinking about a job”. There appeared a light frown on his forehead appeared which He started scratching unintentionally. I caught that! It was troubling him.
This was that strange unconscious reflex action I was hoping for, that feeling of letting your shields down and go from being resistant to vulnerable. We tend to hide behind our feelings and feel ashamed of not getting it right. We often forget that emotions are not unique, and every troubling mind feels the same, for some it’s excruciating and for some its easy to conceal.
I poked him with a warm smile, “Why so serious!”. When shield go down, spontaneity steps in. He continued, “You know I am really scared about that,
about job I mean. I still don’t know what to do with my life, I am just following the path laid by my parents and it ends on my career which is what I am not ready for”. Silence prevailed, He wasn’t expecting me to open up. I could see the restless face falling down on his chest. His voice went low key (Guys can’t cry). “Zaka I am not ready for this, I am not ready for the world yet. It’s scary!” He looked at me with a troubled face. “Feeling’s mutual brother”, I smiled at him. “Come on, Lets get you a cup of coffee”. That was enough talk for one day. The ice was broken and so was his fear, fear of the unknown.
Better or for worse, every human being wants someone to caress them, profess interest in what they do or like, hold their hands and say, “You don’t have to do this alone” or just a brotherly pat on their shoulder saying “You can do it”. Believe me this is all it takes for us oddly minded human beings to take courage in something we weren’t able to do before, get motivated to perform which we just, an instant before, proved to be impossible. Try giving it to someone to get it in return. Try to get interested, You will get the help you need.
