familiarity.
This has been playing on my mind for the past few days.
As a person, I hate any kind of familiarity.....it's not that I do not like the closeness of a happy and good relationship, just that I don't like anyone too close.
I am not talking about our children, for their bond with their mothers is umbilical - no one can be closer to a mother than her daughter/son or closer to a child than her/his mother. We may spoil that relationship, but it is there.....and best is that it can always be repaired.
No, I am talking about the other relationships - cousins, spouse, friends, classmates... People with whom we share likes and dislikes, interests, and have things in common. Growing up, my Dad took great pains to tell me where to draw a line with my friends. There were many times when he drew those lines himself. And one of my mother's favorite sayings was 'Familiarity breeds contempt'.
Often, I see how people just trample right into the very close space surrounding their friends, and indeed how they go right into the private space of even those they have just met. It feels abrasive to me. I cannot do this. Nor will I allow anyone to bridge my very private space. I do believe that this kind of closeness spoils things. It takes away that something special/different from a relationship We need space to manouver our thoughts, emotions, feelings... and we need to allow others too to have their own space...
For some it is a habit backed by 'this is who I am - take it or leave it'. But, what about the other person? How might he/she feel? Why can we not get to know another person keeping a slight distance. I feel it is important to respect the other person's feelings, beliefs, thoughts, values, strengths, weaknesses, compulsions, committments...even though we may not agree with them. After all we are all different - each one of us in our own ways. There can be interesting meeting points even with those who don't fit into our mold of how we think 'friends' (or whoever in whatever relationship) should be. To want us to do what they want or to make us clones of them does not bode well for any relationship.
Before writing this blog, I checked with the Free Dictionary and Thesaurus.com.
The Free Dictionary gives as one of its definitions of familiarity -
Undue intimacy; an instance of unwarranted intimacy
And the Thesaurus, while giving many lovely synonyms, also mentions presumption, forwardness and unceremoniousness
Which means that while there can be friendliness, there is the danger of unwarrented intimacy because of presumptions made by one of those in the relationship.
Doesn't sound palatable to me at all.
I think we need to have a space around us and respect the space around the other person - if necessary create an illusion of space around the other person and don't go into it at all. It can be misunderstood as aloofness by a person who believes in being familiar with everyone. In that case there is no common ground to begin with and so better to heed the warning signals beeping within us...
Not saying be aloof....no, absolutely not. But familiarity--------never, ever, ever...