A Failed Connection
I’m not gonna lie, this my third attempt at writing this story. Every time I went to do it, I felt like I wasn’t being honest or authentic enough because of how uncomfortable the story made me. I’ll say to myself “Please be authentic, vulnerable. Tell it honestly,” but somehow I seem to get lost along the way. However, the meaning of this story wouldn’t be the same without showing the parts of it that make me cringe and want to hide as I tell it. I have to remind myself of the purpose behind this blog, with it providing me my own space to be honest about these things, confirm my own understandings from life and confront my shame head on. Maybe 3rd time’s the charm.
When I first moved to New York, I was finally free to take on the city’s social scene. I was especially excited to meet a lot of new queer people and try dating. A few months in, I started seeing this guy for a couple dates. He was really awesome. He had this goofy laugh where he'd say something funny or embarrassing about himself, subsequently making him laugh, with his laugh being so funny that he would get embarrassed by it and would laugh even more. It was just this adorable thing. I liked him, and things were going pretty well! It was Halloween, and we had a date. I went to his place to eat take-out Thai Food and watch some viral YouTube videos (Nicole TV, highly recommend her ‘Single Mom Routine’ video). At one point, we sat at his piano as he played and I even sang to it a little bit. It was peaceful. I felt empowered through this new life I got to live as an adult, where I’m able to seek new answers and connections myself. It felt mature. I began finding normalcy in dating as a gay man.
We start chatting about some deep topics. For anyone that knows me, I can flip like a switch into a deep conversation. I am always down to dive into something and get really intense, that’s just me. He opened up to me after a bit about a dear friend of his back in college that had committed suicide during undergrad. He recounted this story to me that was incredibly painful. I could see the residual pain that lives within him from all of it. The experiences he had during and after the event could break a person. It was something I’ve never had happen to me or dealt with, fortunately. The health of those we love is something to cherish, it can change at any moment. It was a truly humbling story. At that moment, I remember sitting there, with no idea what to say. Then, my auto pilot kicked in. My mouth started running on, trying to analyze the story. I wanted to find a solution with him to locate some kind of positive from the event. I remember saying to him, “Well, did you learn anything from it?” Even saying it didn’t sound right or necessary. He just looked at me blankly and responded “Did I learn anything? My friend committed suicide.”
I immediately felt a shock come over me. I had automatically treated this moment as I normally treat my conversations. Personally, I love having a spirited back and forth discussion, analyzing things and giving advice where I can. I honestly thought I was pretty good at it, having gotten rave reviews about my skills in the past. However, this moment slapped me in the face and made me realize I wasn’t anywhere near an expert. He just looked at me with this bewildered and disappointed look in his face. Suddenly, there was a world between us. I’m sitting right next to him, but it’s completely different now. He just... switched off in front of me. I watched his face shut down, his once glowing blue eyes gone dim. I just kept talking, kept trying to reason or find a silver lining in this mess. I wanted to be optimistic. I wanted to help, to give him something. I had dug myself into a hole already, but my anxiety and belief that I horribly screwed up made me ramble more, hoping to find my way back to safety. It just made everything worse. I even tried to say something faith related, a subject area I had NO place bringing into the conversation, especially with where I am right now in my own spirituality journey. It was so hypocritical of me, but I was just grasping for anything at that point. Turned away from me, he responds “Can we please stop talking about this?” He looked away and never truly turned back. I sealed the final nail in my coffin. After that, I knew it was done. He was gone. I watched this crumble in front of me, and I was the one who made the comment that did it. I was the culprit of this failure.
I remember leaving for home that night knowing that was it. It was tough because I knew that would be the case. I never went on another date with him after that. I never saw him again. That night has always stuck with me though. I haven’t forgotten that moment at all. I look back on that, almost a year and a half later, and I get it. I was sympathizing with this guy. I felt bad for him, pitied him. As it turns out, I needed to empathize with him. I needed to be there for him, thank him for confiding in me, and support him. I didn’t need to give him anything. I didn’t need to give him advice. I didn’t need to give him counsel. I didn’t need to give him a revelation. I just needed to be there, as a human, present in that moment with him. I couldn’t even be present when it mattered and I had previously prided myself on my own mindfulness practice. It was a complete failure of applying my own morals and lessons in the moment, and I knew it. That was the worst part, because I knew it was all on me. I felt guilty about it, and I do to this day. However, it doesn't fill me with shame anymore. I know I’m not bad. As Brene Brown put it, shame is a focus on self, while guilt is a focus on behavior. It was my behavior in that moment that crumbled this connection, not who I was. I left that night back then full of shame, and it ate away at me for quite some time. However, shame can’t survive being spoken, as it deprives shame of its power over us. So here I am, finally ridding myself of that shame. Guilt itself is not a bad thing. Guilt allows us to identify the action that causes some form of regret in ourselves, and normally ends with a positive because it ultimately leads you to not repeat the same mistake. It sticks with you, and my feelings of guilt here were crucial for understanding my takeaway lesson.
As Sarah Lewis said in her book The Rise, ‘The word failure is imperfect. Once we are ready to talk about it, we often call the event something else - A learning experience, a trial, a reinvention - no longer a static concept of failure.’ In this case, my failure taught me what empathy truly was because of a situation where I felt guilt for completely lacking it. All I had to do was connect with the emotion he was feeling, right there and then. That’s all you can do sometimes, and honestly that can be worth more than anything. There’s power in that. There’s connection. I was given a chance for connection, and I disconnected. I didn’t look at the situation and story from the right angle. Empathy was all I needed, and there lies my lesson.
From that moment forward, I promise to integrate empathy into everything I do, especially for all those who choose to confide in me and show their vulnerability. I know I don’t need to be some guru. I need to be a person. I will support, be there, and show up. I need to let myself be seen and see those around me. I think the fact that everything had been going so well with him leading up to the downfall made the understanding stick so much more; because at that moment, my guilt was around losing something that was going really well in my life. In that moment, in that short span of time, he was a very exciting new connection in my life. I understand my failure. I was put down a notch, but as a dear friend of mine, Jake Novak, once said “Every setback is a setup for a comeback.” In this case, the setback was a lost romantic connection, and the comeback was a deeper understanding of empathy. I understand it now the way that just reading and talking about it can’t give you. This is an exact point of time that I identify with it. This is the origin story of my empathy, and I’m truly excited for the chapters to come.
… And to the person this is written about: I am sorry, and thank you for sharing your story with me.
Optimistically,
Jon
