We all do it. All the time. We meet someone and the narrative just begins. It takes on a life of its own. We fill in all the blanks we don’t know about a person which is largely, if not completely, made up by our minds. None of it can be true. Some of it can be true. But rarely is all of it true. Most of the time, it is the stuff we wish were true...and often, it is not true at all.
I think it would be a fun practice, as relationships progress, to tell each other the stories we made up about the person in the beginning...like:
“I thought you were this thoughtful, amazing, wonderful...”
“I thought you were a creep...”
“I thought you were so handsome and sexy...”
“I thought you were a player...”
“I thought you were a dick...”
I mean if we thought we might have to tell someone else what we initially thought about them, we might be more careful with the thoughts we allow to proliferate unchecked, and limitless from the word go.
And if we were super mindful about the stories we tell, perhaps we might also pay more heed to the red flags that are always apparent at the beginning...we just are so busy writing a complete relational fiction, that we can’t be bothered with the facts as they are presented to us.
I can’t count how many times, how often I have written a narrative for someone else that has proven to beyond their capacity. I gift them the powers of self reflection, integrity, intellect and grace, when they have only a passing acquaintance with any of that. I am a gap filler and I have had no issue, none at all, filling in all the gaps you might have in your character with the fables my head creates for you.
Since I became aware of my penchant for relational story writing, I have attempted to just observe what it is my head is writing about you. I mean, I can’t stop it. But I can see that what I want you to be and what you actually are, are often two very different things. And it is a not so subtle violence for me to do this to you because I am then going to hold you accountable later for the version of you that I dreamed up, and find your actual version lacking. Which is patently unfair. And often leads us both to a very abrupt dead end..with and without the fiery crash that comes from moving 100 miles an hour down a road that had a sign at the beginning that told you there was no continuation.
I think it would be interesting if we did commit to telling the significant people in our lives the stories we wrote for them. And then listening to the other person tell us the ones they told about us. I think it might be very enlightening, regardless of whether or not the relationship continued or ended.
I am the giver of attributes people do not often possess. I tend to front people all sorts of things like trust and fidelity and honor and truth telling. Only to be very disappointed later on, that the person did not, in fact, have any of that going on. I just wanted them to...quite desperately actually. I have found my willingness to own this quite liberating. It wasn’t that I was so duped (I mean I have been on occasion) but mostly it is my own story telling that gets me into the trouble I tend to find. I WANT you to be a certain way, so I write the script that allows for you to be that way, and sometimes you even play along. Reading the lines I wrote for you, like an academy award winning actor. But then I am so disappointed when I find out, quite sadly, that you are not the character you played.
I think I can save myself and you a lot of time and heart break if I just own this story writing habit of mine. So I started a story writing journal. I know this makes journal number 477 for me (not really I am prone to wild exaggeration...it is likely journal number 25 which is NOT an exaggeration). I started a journal for the new people I meet in my life. Why only the new people? Because you are the fuckers I write about most. The older people are known, and while I can still write some quite amazing fiction about you too, it is mostly the new blanker canvas people where I really seem to go to town.
So I have this journal now and I write down who I think you are, who I wish you were and what I am actually seeing. It has been very eye opening. And then it is grand fun when the test of time proves me right or wrong. And because I have laid all of this over the framework of discovery, it seems to have provided me some distance from the attendant buy-in that used to fuck me up so badly. Perhaps I can see you better when I am actually writing down the story as I am creating it.
And I am sure that many of the stories I write are going to be hilarious in a couple of months. And I am equally sure some are going to be heartbreakingly sad. But fuck if I am not living this life! And gathering more data for more shit that I am actually going to write later on.
As we always say, the first part of change is recognizing that you need to change. And often that is said that is the hardest part of change. I am not sure that is true. I think we all know, on some level of awareness, the things about ourselves that are wrong or faulty or lacking...the harder part for me is maintaining a level of commitment to continue to see me, in all my flawed and varied forms. Really look at who I am and how I show up, repeatedly. It gets hard and boring and lonely and honestly I get so over it with all the self knowledge and growth. Sometimes I think I just want to commit to being dysfunctional. Be able to say fuck it, fuck this, fuck you and fuck me.
But I can’t, at least not for very long. I cannot unsee life as a constantly evolving opportunity to come to know yourself better and to work to improve upon the person you are and move towards the version of you that is better, kinder, hotter, more present and awaker (I know that isn’t a word...). I want to see the stories I write for you and for me. And I think it would be fun if we normalized owning our own delusions about the people with whom we interact, date, love, marry and share our lives with...I mean, it might just lead us to everything we have ever wanted...
I mean it could. Stranger things have happened...
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