I mean what do we show the world? Do we show our authentic self, or just a facsimile of ourselves?
Take a look at Social Media; often it is full of nice photos and glowing selfies. Postings of our trips and family and significant others. Though I have always watched out for the Lacunae ( An empty space or a missing part; a gap ). The photographs that are not there; no images of a mother or a father, or friends. Do we post an image that is genuine? That is sad or unhappy? They talk of ‘curating’ Social media; that means you only show the best of yourself. Therefore you always see super manicured images. Super poses. The worst ones get taken down.
Sometimes I run across someone who is brave and who posts something about depression or a break up.
I broke up with a friend recently and it was only during the half hour or hour that she allotted me that I found out about her mental problems. Till then, she had been in super control, always smiling and happy. I thought. How wrong one can be. How much we miss, or how much the other person hides from us. Which is why I talk of people being ‘icebergs’ as a metaphor. An iceberg is a floating chunk of ice in the ocean which is so big and heavy that only the tip of it shows above the water. Most of the iceberg is hidden underneath the water. That is what most people do or are. They put up a good front, but they hide the rest.
Even as this person was explaining all the reasons she didn’t want to continue our ‘friendship’ I thought she was still hiding things from me. She had dissimulated for months, why not a few more minutes? Funny, she was always going on about being honest but I had caught her up in lies she told me, both big and small. Like where she lived. She told me she lived far away, and then one day she walked over to my place from her home in a half hour. She told me even bigger lies, then denied telling them. Once she told me that she didn’t care if I died from Covid 19. That shocked me.
Was I honest with her? There were things I didn’t tell her. So that is an indirect lie; holding back information. Maybe because I didn’t trust her? Over 6 months I saw her almost every week and we talked about everything. I was hesitant to tell her ‘everything’ about me and when I did reveal something very personal she freaked out.
I like this quote about intimacy. That it is about truth. And trusting the other person. I guess I didn’t have that with her.
