I had an interesting thought earlier today: I don’t really know anyone who knows everything about me. I suppose it’s possible that this is true of a lot of people, because many of us have secrets, but I feel I don’t know anybody who truly knows all of my significant experiences and the overall structure of my life. I have many people with whom I feel very close, but I feel that each of them is only conscious of one portion of my life (specifically, the portion which is most strongly related to them.)
Perhaps this is quite common, perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps, indeed, it’s true of every person to some extent or another. From my point of view, I think it’s quite healthy to have many different aspects of your life – that way, if something goes horribly wrong within one of them and starts to become a cause of distress, you can take solace within another. While I behave quite consistently with different people and make it a rule to treat people equally, I do think that some people would be quite surprised if they knew about certain experiences and relationships that I’ve had.
Having said all that, I don’t mean to sound like I’m advocating a lack of communication. I do think that it’s very important for friends to share their experiences with one another; not only is it a good way to help form bonds with people, but can also help give a sense of solidarity for those who have been through similar things. But, on the other hand, I find it much more enjoyable to hear stories of somebody else’s life, than to share details of the history of my own. Perhaps I should share more things about myself with people.
It was something which had never occurred to me until I was watching television the other day and one character mentioned that they knew everything about another and started mentioning things about their life. I feel that a lot of people might know me very well in terms of the way that my mind works, but not so much in the sense of knowing about my life experiences. Is this the norm? Maybe it’s wrong to talk about ‘norms’ when it comes to something which might be different for everybody…
