Wanting People Only on My Own Terms

My dearest gentle readers… It’s me again, sliding into your inbox.. please welcome me ❀

We think we know ourselves well because we have lived with ourselves all our lives.

It feels true. No one has spent more time with me than me. So I should know myself best.

But I have only ever known myself from one side. My own side… from the inside. I know what I am thinking. I know what I mean to do. I know why I do what I do. I know when I am tired, when I am full, when I just want to be quiet.

Other people know me from the other side. From the outside. They cannot hear what is going on in my head. They can only see what I do. They see it again and again over time, and from that they build a picture of who I am.

Both pictures are real. They are just not the same. And I am learning that this difference can cause a lot of hurt that no one really means to cause.

Over the years, different people have described me in similar ways. Sometimes they’d call me moody. Other times they’d say I suddenly become distant or disappear. I’d usually laugh it off because it never sounded like me. It wasn’t that I thought they were lying. I just couldn’t recognise the person they were describing.

I’ve been thinking about all these because of something a friend said while we were preparing for the RCCG Annual Convention which is starting from this Sunday.

We were talking about the usual things you know… what to pack, mostly whether we’d survive another week of camp food without buying too many snacks. Somewhere between all that, she looked at me and said, “Hannah, please don’t have your mood swings at camp.”

I laughed and immediately tried to deny it because, honestly, I don’t see myself that way.

If you asked me to describe myself, “moody” would never make the list.

I’d probably tell you I enjoy my own company. That I need time alone every now and then. That sometimes I disappear into myself for a while because that’s simply where I feel most comfortable. None of those things have ever seemed unusual to me. They’ve just felt like… me.

But then I know that I’ve only ever known myself from the inside… that my behaviour makes sense only to me… that their own definition of me being moody is simply me being still… not wanting company. That at that point my desire to be alone is stronger than the desire to be around people. And it’s not that I am angry or upset with anyone. Nothing dramatic is happening at that point.. I just suddenly go still.

And yeah, because I’m the one living inside that experience, it makes perfect sense to me. I guess what I hadn’t thought about was what that experience looks like from the outside.

Someone else doesn’t wake up inside my head and know that nothing is wrong. They don’t know that I’m simply enjoying my own space. All they know is that someone who was warm and present a few moments ago suddenly seems quieter, harder to reach, less interested in being around people.

I love people. I genuinely do.

I love long conversations that begin with nothing important and somehow end with everything. I love laughing with friends a lot. I love feeling emotionally close to the people I care about.

But I only seem to want those things when I have the capacity for them.

When I want people, I want them wholeheartedly.

When I want solitude, I want that just as wholeheartedly too.

And what’s crazy is that I never saw anything wrong with that. I assumed the people who loved me would simply understand. I hoped they’d know my silence isn’t rejection. I hoped they wouldn’t take my distance personally. I wanted them to leave room for me until I felt like coming back.

But then what is even crazier is that, when my rhythm changes and I suddenly want closeness again, I quietly expect them to be there.

I expect them to have room for me. I expect our conversations to pick up naturally. I expect warmth to still be waiting.

And when it isn’t, I feel disappointed. Sometimes I even feel hurt.

But why?

Isn’t it rather unfair that I want people according to how I feel… that I want people on my own terms… based on my own inner time? That when I need space, I want them to understand. And when I need closeness, I want them to be there.

Do you get? It’s like realizing I have mostly been thinking about myself. My need for silence… need to disappear for a while or to return when I feel ready.

But I have rarely stopped to ask what it feels like for the person on the other side of that?

What does it feel like to reach for someone who has suddenly become distant?

What does it feel like when someone wants to be close to me and I have already closed myself off?

What does it feel like when someone reaches for me and I am simply not there emotionally?

I think about the people who have known me for years… the friends who met me when we were still in university and who have watched me go through different versions of myself. God bless them. They’ve had enough time to understand that when I retreat, it is not always about them.

But what about everyone else?

What about the people who do not have years of history with me?

Is it fair for me to expect people to understand when I disappear into myself, while still expecting them to welcome me with the same warmth when I return?

Or is that just one of the complicated parts of being human, where we want people to understand why we step away, while forgetting that they also experience what it feels like when we do?