I hate to make my first blogpost of the new year a negative one, but I need to vent and this is my personal outlet, so why not?

Ever since I completed undergrad life I have found it increasingly difficult to form connections with new people that I meet. Before then, it was easier (although I probably did not think it at the time). I guess it could be largely due to the fact that school/college/uni provides a clearer context to make friends within, and as a teacher-in-training, I’m starting to appreciate peer support a lot more.

Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for my huge family who are always there for me. And the friendships that were made during my childhood and uni days will forever be special to me. It’s just now that I am experiencing adult life, I’m realising that the MAJORITY of new people I meet can be really unkind in the sense that they just won’t make the same effort I do, and I just don’t understand WHY. It’s definitely not for my lack of trying.

In the past six years I have reached out to many many different people in different ways. To just say hi and introduce myself (especially if I realise we share something in common), to help out with something they needed help with, to try and arrange meet ups…and so on…you know, just normal everyday things.

But most of the time my level of enthusiasm is just dismissed by the other person and at most I will receive one worded responses in an uninterested tone.. I can’t bring myself to match this tone so it’s usually a classic case of me with my overly expressive paragraphs using more than my fair share of emojis and exclamation marks, taking an interest in the other person’s life and how they are…and the other person’s “ok.”. If you were to see screenshots of these conversations I have (usually sent to my sister so I can rant, since she is the only person who understands) you would laugh at the imbalance of effort.

This is my usual thought process: At first I think maybe it’s a matter of time. Maybe the other person is just too busy to reply properly. Or perhaps they were just having a bad day. But then it starts happening again and again. At that point I put it down to personality traits and I start telling myself not to take it personally, i.e. “this is how these people usually message everyone”. But then I see how they interact with each other in shared social circles (often over Facebook, Instagram and shared WhatsApp groups) and they seem like best buds with each other, exchanging words in cheerful, friendly tones. That’s when I start questioning: “Is it just me? Is it because I do this? Because I don’t do this? Because I am like this?”. But in my heart of hearts I know that the answer is NO, it is not an issue on my end, it’s simply because these people are being unkind. I have a million and one other things to get on with and I know that it’s not worth thinking about this, but the feeling that this sort of experience imprints on me is difficult to brush off.

I would just like to point out and say that although this happens often on social media, I have experienced this in-person too in various circumstances (gatherings, events) – so it’s not just a matter of meeting in the ‘real world’. I will make 110% effort with someone and more often than not they will give 0 in return, only to turn to someone else and become oh-so interested at hearing from them the exact same thing I had just said minutes earlier and they had not been interested in hearing from me (if that makes no sense to you then you have been fortunate enough to have never experienced this). And of course it’s a worse feeling then, because in that situation I can’t just put away my phone, I have to wait it out until I have been able to leave and make my way home so I can have a good cry and get over it. People can be unkind in the real world too.

Also, this is not just down to location. Just as people can be unkind in any form, they can be unkind in any country too. It’s just that I have felt it more outside of the UK, without the presence of my family and friends. I touched upon this on my earlier post Expat life and isolation, how you have to go outside of your comfort zone and put in the extra effort when you are in a new country, to form connections with others. The thing is – at the risk of contradicting myself – I have already tried this but the results have been disappointing, people have been disappointing.

That’s not to say I haven’t met ANYONE nice in the past few years, there have been a few gems. So if you are reading this thinking, “hey I first met you as a grown up and I thought we were good friends!” – you can safely assume that you are one of the special few. The problem is that when I think about that word – ‘few’ – I start to loose faith in humankind and reflect on how unkindness appears to be taking over.

If the past year has taught us anything, it’s how we can be helpless in our actions, but powerful with our words. And words (or rather, lack of, in this case) can affect a person’s mental health so so much…and people can respond differently. I might just be ranting about it over my blog and getting over it the next day, but these sorts of situations may be just enough to push someone else over the edge.

You would think that these experiences would turn me into a bitter person who would not want to bother again. But no, after a sigh and a short stint of feeling sorry for myself and the world, questioning “why are people like this?!” (clearly a period I am experiencing currently as I post this), I will get back up again and shamefully expose my sad, over-enthusiastic self again to the next uninterested person.

So yes, the million-rial question is, why do I even bother? And I do have an answer for that these days. I bother to be nice to others, even if they don’t necessarily feel the need to make the same effort for me, to set an example to my daughter. So that one day, hopefully, she can appreciate the importance of kindness herself.