This thought came to mind when I was sorting my bedroom and an old mentor-figure popped into my mind. The way we ended things could have gone better, neither of us ever thought there would be an ending, still, I learned a lot about myself in the interaction.
This mentor always told me to come to her with critiques and that she was open to growing in all kinds of ways. Over the years it became clear to me that this wasn’t really the case, she had a perception of herself she projected, yet she seemed to always be the person who dealt critiques and couldn’t handle the return. There was a moment the last time we spoke I realized I had to resign myself to the fact that this person wasn’t interested in listening to me. She told me straight out she thought about the words I sent to her and she wasn’t interested in talking more about it.
A cry for help was shut down because she decided to prioritize her feelings over her mentee’s mental health.
There was once talk in this relationship about being there for her during convalescent times and I can only wonder how genuine she was with any kind of more than work relationship moments. I think about those words that you can’t always take people at face value when they say things that would indicate you’re closer than acquaintance, the words my former roommate said as she left after spending the previous year calling me her wife.
I know there are many people who would blame me for taking these kinds of overtures literally, and to them I say how cruel are you to wave intimate relationships at someone because you don’t take the other’s feelings into account. Coming to terms with someone not being able to listen to you comes down to remembering that it is a good thing to believe someone is genuine in their overtures of developing more intimate relationships.
The way our society wants us to treat everyone in our circle as an intimate relationship is part of the reason many people can’t identify a real, close intimate relationship in their lives. Words of love and connection are throws around to people a neurotypical person barely knows because there is a flatness in how they consider most of their relationships.
Each individual will vary, yet Auties being literally minded is a trope for a reason — we tend to put a lot of meaning into each word we say and expect others to do the same.
But they don’t.
And we can’t change them any more than they can change us. We can learn how to bridge the communication gap with practice at identifying when there may be a gap developing, yet it is a part of being human to have to deal with miscommunication on occasion.
Sometimes one must come to terms with a person in their life being unable to listen beyond the surface of your words.
