Day 23: Relationship Ladders

Last week I experienced one of those moments that gets in your head and lives with you for a few days. 

It happened during a very short pick-up conversation by the school office, after dismissal was over and the hallways were empty. Somehow the subject of how people interact with each other came up, in the context of how each of us has our own relational ladder, comparing how close we ever feel with other people or how well we get to know them to how high up they would get. I don't remember the exact wording of what was said, but as this conversation pod broke up, someone said as an addendum, while I was walking the other way, something along the lines of “Tom’s ladder is not easy to climb.” 

I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about hearing that, especially since this was coming from someone I know well and trusted. Was that really how people saw me? The idea seemed ridiculous since I tend to believe almost the opposite — not so much that people are clamoring to position themselves on my ladder, but curious as to why anyone would want to in the first place. I don’t mean this is a low self-esteem, “woe is me” way, but just that once people reach a certain stage of adulthood, it seems like the people who make up your closest circle of friends and family has already been set, and there aren’t a lot of auditions being held for available openings. To continue the ladder analogy, once you reach a certain age, most of the higher rungs are already occupied. How willing are any of us to accommodate newer relationships that ever reach beyond the superficial?

I’ll admit that when it comes to how I interact with people, I probably at least give the impression of being complicated. I’m a hardcore introvert, which means I don’t feed off a need for other people. This isn’t at all saying I’m anti-social; I still have the same need for relationships as anyone else, I just tend to fill that need in concentrated doses and focus more on the people I’m comfortable with. All classic introvert things here. On the flip side of that — and I know I’ve brought up this point with people before and they’re usually dismissive about it as though I don’t have an argument to make — I basically feel like if I’m not in someone’s direct line of sight, I’ve basically fallen off the face of the Earth, as far as they’re concerned. Again, not a self-esteem thing at all, just more of a “What reason would you have to pay me a passing thought when you have the complications and joys of your own life in front of you?” 

Outside of family, the majority of relationships I’ve formed in the past several years have come from the people I work with, which isn’t surprising since these are the people I see the most. Tricky thing about collecting friends in education these days though; the profession has become far more transient in the past decade than I suspect most people outside of it would realize. You can work with people who become friends for short periods of time when you see them daily, but when situations change, as they do more often than not, most of those friendships eventually fade off. There are people I’ve worked with closely in the past who might only be a hallway or two away from me now that I barely speak to anymore. I can think of half a dozen others who had become and remained good friends, until they left the job or moved on to a different school, and whatever friendship had been there immediately began to diminish. Someone once told me in a goodbye, “You aren’t getting rid of me that easy,” to which my unspoken response had been, “We’re going to get rid of each other EXACTLY that easy.” And things changed. It took awhile, but the level of emotional intimacy that came with that friendship eventually faded. We both had other things happening in our lives that became more important than each other.

Of course the flip side of this is how you navigate the uncomfortableness of valuing them enough to seek some kind of connection and discover later that need or want isn’t reciprocated. No one wants to know they’re on that end. Being as highly introverted as I am, I tend to take the hint and walk away, and perhaps more quickly than I should. Knowing that about myself and knowing that there could be any kind of perception that my ladder isn’t easy to climb makes me wonder how many times I’ve been seen as off-putting or aloof by someone else without even realizing it.  

It all makes me wonder what my relationship ladder is really like: How high is it? Who do I have in my life climbing up to stay for the long term? How much more space is available for anyone daring to climb on? Who is on there already, but will soon be jumping off as their life takes them in directions that won’t intersect with mine anymore?