Interpersonal Retardation
2004-03-09 7:42 a.m.
It�s really hard to meet someone you already know. That�s a fact that I�ve had a hard time coming to terms with ever since I first started talking to people online about 10 years ago.The real issue is that when you meet someone in person, you get a chance to work on getting to know them. You have the opportunity to feel the person out. You can see what kind of jokes they�ll enjoy and what they�ll not quite get. You can get a good idea of which conversations work better, and how to �keep up�. All parties get the opportunity to slowly reveal themselves and comfortably walk through any paths of mistrust and openness together to find a common ground.
Everyone has their own comfort levels and time limits and their own triggers to tell them when they�re �ready� to move forward. When do you invite friends along? When do you go one to one? When can they meet your family? When can they hold your head over the toilet while you profess your love and gratitude to them spewing the past 8 hours worth of liquor and junk food in loud rapturous spurts?
When you�ve been meeting people your whole life you get a routine and an instinct as to when these interpersonal milestones are reached.
Years back it was via letters, then over the phone, then (at least in Chicago), it was voice mail boxes, and now it�s the internet via IMs, Emails, VOIP conversations, blogs, etc. You can go weeks or months, or in some cases even years knowing a person very well, but never actually meeting them face to face.
This brings an incredibly strange dynamic to the table. How well do you actually know a person, and how can you tell? What meter do you have when there�s no eye contact, body language, or subconscious flirting / bickering? It�s overwhelming how many tiny messages fly between all of us in every moment of every day that we just don�t even notice. From the guy with the nice eyes on the train to the girl with the nice butt who just glanced your way from across the bar to those people you�ve known you for 10 years and know more about you than anyone would really want to.
So once time has passed and you know each other conceptually, intellectually and maybe a bit humorously� what happens when you finally get that well awaited moment of contact? How do you catch up on 3 years of subconscious mish-mosh that would normally have been taken care of 2 years and 10 months ago? How do you guide your expectations of that person?
Well, it�s not easy. And if you�re me, you�ll fuck it up really well. I�m bad at the hints and signals thing as it is, and throwing off the balance just tips me over completely. If I�ve known you for more than a couple months, I�m most likely incredibly honest and open with you. Tends to be a positive trait for the most part, but definitely needs quite a bit of curbing when your guard is still at full thrust. I tend to not expect anything of anyone regardless of how well I know them, but those expectations generally will be expected of me.
I�m not sure where to take things from here, and losing out on a friendship due to my own interpersonal retardation just isn�t going to sit well. ESPECIALLY in this case.