The Strangeness of People Listening
Apparently, my opinions are interesting and people like to hear them. Why do I find this so strange?
Why am I writing this? Or maybe a more pertinent question should be, why are you reading this?
I still have difficulty getting my head around that question.
I find it hard to process the fact that people are actually interested in what I have to say.
But the evidence leans towards it being the case. One of the reasons I started to focus on writing about polyamory, my mental health, and more personal aspects of my life was my website stats showed that people were interested in them. And since I’ve kickstarted my blog with his new focus I’ve had far more people comment and interact with me.
People have messaged me saying I've helped them on their own journey into polyamory. I’ve even had people contact me asking if I’d like to discuss topics with them one-on-one. Some have reached out for my advice.
My advice? As if they believe I know what I’m talking about!
When did people develop that opinion about me?
I had a similar thing happen to me a couple of years ago at work.
One day I realised that people were coming to me when they needed problems fixed. As if I was the one with the answers. The people I managed did what I said not because they had to, but because they looking at me as someone worth listening to and learn from.
I honestly had one person tell me they’d been panicking because they thought they were being moved to a different line manager and didn’t want to leave me!
The fact I knew how to solve problems was because I'd been there the longest and had more experience. The reason I engaged with my team was the leadership training I'd done.
I knew all these facts. And I knew objectively that this meant I had skills other people didn't. What I hadn't prepared for was the realisation that this made a responsible adult.
There is something in my head that convinces me that I’m an “also there”.
I’ve never really been “the best” at anything. In school, I was always one of those people who was pretty good at most things but never excelled at any of them. I was never someone held up as an example. In my head, I was "also there".
I think there is almost certainly something about being a middle child as well. My older sister had done everything before me, and my younger sister was the youngest and cutest. In my head, I was "also there".
This is not to say I was unhappy, or that my life was bad in any way. I don't hate or resent any of these facts. They have just contributed to this feeling of being "also there".
And so I have this default belief that what I have to say can't possibly that interesting. If it's me that's saying it, someone else must have already said it in a more interesting way.
I also hold myself back from engaging with people because I can’t imagine them wanting me to do so. When people comment on my posts, or reach out to me, or engage with me in any way I absolutely love it. I love the feeling they found what I wrote interesting, or that wanted to follow up with me. But if it’s the other way around? Nope, no one is going to want that from me. My trying to engage with people is just going to annoy them.
Ultimately, I don’t want to bother people. How very "English" of me.
And because I’ve conditioned myself to think that this isn’t putting myself down, I’ve never really acknowledged it as a problem I’ve needed to work on.
In a way, I’ve been gaslighting myself about it.
So I’m trying to do my best to fight these ideas that people want to engage with me.
I will accept that people are interested in the things I have to say. And I will accept that people are happy to hear from me when they say things. I will accept that when I’m talking, people aren’t only listening to me out of politeness.
I still can’t quite get my head around how this state of affairs has come about. But I’m working on it.
