Two in two days has to be bad. Two quarrels in two days are definitely bad. Yesterday night I fought with a colleague. It started when I said something and he interpreted it wrong or maybe I did say something wrong. He said something like “there is a limit to what one can listen”. And I was “What?”
Ok I like to pull people’s leg. It does not mean I am serious about anything. Lot of people pull my leg and I just laugh it off. When you are friends, it is one liberty I like to take. Having fun and pulling legs is much fun in friendship. But I guess I had taken things for granted and I thought him to be my friend. I do take care that I don’t get too insulting when I make fun.
My guess is that he was relating something to something else. He was angry over something I did or was doing over a period of time and this anger boiled out yesterday. Or just that I had crossed the limit somewhere. But the problem is I can’t remember when?
Again today morning, I called my old friend in India. We have been friends for more than 13 years now. He and his wife are really good friends of mine. His wife a few days earlier had asked something about me which he didn’t know. This friends tells me all the problems he has. His wife found it surprising that I knew all his problems and he didn’t know mine.
Today he almost fought with me that I don’t consider him as a friend because he knows nothing about me except my career and job.
But this has always been the case. I never talk about my problems to anybody. How come after 13 years of friendship, he asks me my problems and expects me to tell him. I agree that sharing of problems reduces the impact of the problem. But from my childhood, I have always dealt with my own problems and I am comfortable with that. I was always closed for myself and open to deal with others problems
Yesterday while talking to another friend, I was telling her about the survival technique I use to keep out problems. And these may not be practical problems like career and finance but more human problems. The survival technique I use is building a imaginary bubble around me. A bubble which I control. I decide what has to come in and go out. So I decide that I only want happiness. This happiness can be anything like watching a movie, a day out with friends or writing or reading a good book. Just about anything. And when bad things or words come I shrug it off that it was not for me.
Yes! Sometimes there are things that cannot be controlled or prevented and the bubble bursts and that hurts badly.
I try to convince my friend that it’s the way I deal with everything. But he wouldn’t listen. I will have to talk to him again on Monday.
After the phone, I sat writing this. Isn’t it a part of my bubble? And I am wondering. Where did I go wrong in both situations? The first one where I thought I took things for granted and spoke too much. But the second situation, I was accused of not speaking at all.
Like Shakespeare’s Hamlet I wonder “To talk or not to talk, that is the question……..” But that changes according to people and situations.
Full2 Faltu 