A Proper End to Social Cues, Empathy, and Characters
Disclaimer: This post and however many are in this series look into how I navigate my interpersonal relationships with a focus on my dating life, yet it won’t be exclusive to my dating life. Therefore, to protect the privacy of certain individuals the names of those mentioned have been changed in this post.
Hi guys! It’s been a while. How’ve you been???
I’ve been having such a hard time writing again, and a huge part of it is due to my falling out of love with topics that I’ve already started on. I hate working on anything new, when I have something left to finish.
So, today (or tonight, I don’t know when I’m posting this), it’s time to tie up some loose ends.
Let me start by finishing out the series: Social Cues, Empathy, and Characters, so I can actually write something fresh without feeling guilty.
We’re going to take a look at two people from my 2023, before I get into the bread & butter of this post. The names are fake, as told in the disclaimer above, but the events were very, very real.
James
James was a twenty-year-old, who had a foggy likeness of Steve Lacy.
He was different, to say the least.
He spoke with the cadence of an anime character, which I overlooked initially. He wouldn’t tell me where he worked (not that I cared all that much). Allegedly, his last ex had come to his job, making a large too-doo about nothing, and his boss said if it ever happened again, he’d be fired. However, he told me this after asking where I worked, so I thought we were just giving out that basic information. As always, my bad for assuming.
I’d like to also note—this was a little hard for me to believe. One because James didn’t seem like the type who could stir up that much passion in anyone, and two, I just can’t imagine embarrassing myself in public like that over a man.
Now that I think of it too, what if he didn’t even have a job? Liar.
He was so nervous when we went out on our first date that he’d blank midway through every other sentence. He apologized profusely once the evening was coming to close, saying this didn’t happen to him often, but he was talking to a beautiful girl. He couldn’t help but.
I thought he was sweet just in a, at times, painfully awkward way, so I chalked up the weirdness to him just having a crush.
He came over to my apartment the third and final time we hung out. He decided to make a few mixed drinks with liquor he brought, water, and some of my Jolly Ranchers (his idea, not mine), for our drinking game. I was pretending to take sips of the drink I made. While he didn’t look like he could hurt me, I needed to be alert just in case. Also, the second time we hung out, he didn’t seem like the type who knew how to leave. Anyways, after literally gulping his drinks like there was no tomorrow, he then proceeded to act as if he was at that point passed tipsy, but not enough to call it drunk.
I guess he needed liquid courage and a reason to be in my house for much too long to not stutter after every word he said.
After kissing me once, he suggested that we take things to my bedroom which I politely declined. Three times. He was a horrible kisser by the way.
It’s like he wanted the passion of a couple who hadn’t seen each other for three years of separation due to one off fighting in some brutal war.
Like why are you grabbing the back of my head and digging into the parts of my braids right now? This style needs to last me another two weeks damn it.
He eventually fell asleep on my legs while we were watching a movie. Instead of waking him up, I tried to get him off so I could hopefully get my phone, look at the time, then be like “Yo, I got work in the morning".
However, this man woke up, and before I could say anything, he immediately started going at it again (the bad kissing). He also made a point to say he was still feeling the drinks. I was afraid that if he got into an accident or something leaving my house, somehow I’d get blamed. I didn’t need that on my conscious or my record, so I just kept going along with everything (except the entering my bedroom that is, that’s my safest space).
At one point though, he paused, taking his grimy hands out of my hair, and said,
“Before things go any further [they weren’t], I need to tell you something.”
God. What? What can he possibly say?
“Okay????”
“So well, uh, I’m infertile . . .”
Hey God, it’s me Taylor again. Have you forsaken me? Is this punishment, because how did I get here? I was angry, confused, and appalled because nothing could have prepared me for that.
“Has. . . . Has that been a problem for you before?”
“Kinda” says the TWENTY-YEAR-OLD to me.
“Well, I don’t want to have kids with you. I barely know you so . . . . . wait how the f*ck do you know that?!?!?”
“My friends and I got bored one day, so we decided to go get a sperm count test. Mine were dangerously lowwwwww.”
Now, I just think that’s a bald-faced lie. What do you mean you got a sperm count test out of boredom with your friends? Is that even allowed? Is that even free? How much would that cost after insurance? Y’all couldn’t find a skate park or something? Y’all couldn’t go on a hike? A sperm count test? Unreal.
I didn’t even know that was the word you used for barren men. Infertile????? I don’t know, I’ve only ever heard that word used when talking about women.
Finally, let’s say on the off chance he was telling me the truth.
Like I said before, we had only hung out three times. Neither one of us had talked about being partners, what we wanted out of said partners, or the future in general. I think what I’m about to say is a fair assumption to make: that statement was a poorly crafted ruse to get me to sleep with him. I mean, I’ve already rejected the idea of doing it after insisting, then he proceeds to tell me he (probably) couldn’t have kids as if my only issue was getting pregnant?????
I just don’t think he considered how I’d feel about that at all. I think his . . . hot and bothered self threw any sort of sensibility to my feelings out the window.
We never hung out or spoke after that day again. Obviously.
Pamela
I had invited my friends along to help me celebrate Pam’s birthday. A huge part of me was worried that Pamela was going to feel a little down since Pam’s friends had outcasted her from the group some months prior for essentially defending herself. I had hoped that this outing could be, and I don’t mean to sound corny, the start of several beautiful friendships for her. Friendships defined by care, loyalty, and joy—things these girls had shown me, and things that I felt she deserved.
But as soon we began our friend/birthday celebration date, the vibes felt off. It seemed like Pam was on one or off one. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem like she was having a good time. I was trying my hardest to make things go well.
We went to three places that afternoon, one being a park.
Pamela had made comments earlier in the car on the way there that I felt were a tad underhanded towards me, but I could overlook those. Yet, she then decided immediately after making me feel shitty to discuss a topic so extremely sensitive, it made the rest of the car go silent.
I’ve never seen, well I guess in this case heard since I was driving, my friends get that quiet in unison. Pam just dragged on about this damn thing, not picking up on the tension, not seeming to think of the times I had talked about said topic alone with her and how it had been affecting my friend(s). It almost felt purposeful, the way Pam wouldn’t stop.
Pamela was on thin ice with me at this point.
We finally make it to the park. The girls (besides Pamela) wanted to take photos with some of the planted flowers. I stayed back, so Pamela wouldn’t be completely alone. We watched my friends as one of them got down on one knee, pretending she was proposing with one of the gigantic flowers she picked.
“They’re such silly girls, they’re such silly girls . . . . but I’m more of a side-eye girl,” Pamela said as we stood together, watching my friends enjoying themselves at the park.
I didn’t even know what to say. I think I nervous laughed, which isn’t something I do.
Was this a joke in reference to some TikTok?
No. it can’t be, I thought at the time. I even tried looking it up after the outing was over to give her the benefit of the doubt, and couldn’t find a direct quote anywhere. So it wasn’t that.
Therefore, I took that to mean, “Your friends are fun girls, but I’m the judgemental type”. If that’s not how you, the reader read that, please inform me how I was supposed to take that. Furthermore, it sounded like because they weren’t bitter, those weren’t her type of people. Maybe I should’ve thought more as to why she said that in the first place, but that comment along with others during the outing—and even my time hanging out alone with her—was my last straw. I stopped asking her to hang out after this.
It’s like she didn’t understand that words could hurt.
Now, let me make the connections to all of the previous posts in this series by summarizing what I think I was trying to get at in each:
In “Social Cues are Fashionable, But Empathy is Style”, I touched on how social cues and empathy aren’t mutually exclusive. My reasoning being that those two concepts are two separate things. Social cues are a direct response to the time and culture in which you are presently in. Empathy, however, has the unique ability to transcend cultural barriers and time. Just because one follows a signal to another for the sake of one’s comfortability or following norms we’ve been taught, it doesn’t necessarily mean that decision is rooted in empathy, and vice versa.
I’ve discussed how the socialization of sexes creates our norms & social cues. Instead of using what we were born with as our guides on how to interact with one another, empathy needs to become a more prevalent driver in our lives to dismantle the aforementioned norms. We need to make social cues and empathy become mutually exclusive, but we cannot do this by upkeeping regressive norms.
I’ve even talked about how I use social cues and/or empathy to respond to the “characters” that I’ve been talking about in every one of these posts. What I’m starting to realize though is that I’m not alone in the way I react to others.
While I originally thought “The Curse of Being Non-Reactive” was the least important writing of mine in the series, I think my sentiments reveal how stronger communities, the thing every person yearns for, will never be built if we continue to “other” ourselves.
If we continue to separate these types into groups of those who are unempathetic towards us,
If we continue to remove ourselves from equations because we’re not like them,
If we continue not to see our faults in the matter or our similarities to these “characters”,
And if we continue to let ill intentions (like James) or selfishness or maybe narcissism (like Pamela) bury the ability to be empathetic,
then we will never get those communities that I believe we all need to grow. We will never be able to grow our humanity, together.
Does that make sense?
Our silence, even in times of uncomfortability, is complicity to the massacre of empathy.
Lastly, I want you all to know that I type this post with conviction. Speaking up isn’t an easy task, and being open to critique is an even harder one. I mean look at my responses to those last two stories. I’m aware, now at least, that I played a part in destroying whatever community I could’ve built from these people or they could’ve built with others, due to my withholding, and I’m concerned at the little part of me that didn’t want to hear their feedback.
Therefore, we must practice empathy, accountability, and honesty together, every day, in order to be more loving to one another.
As always, thank you all so much for reading. I apologize for such a long post, but I hope you feel like it was worth it. The next loose end to tie is my last post, so give it another read in the next week or so, and stay tuned.
