Reader Meet Author

One of the things that separates human beings from other animals on the planet is our ability to display emotion. Notice I said “display” emotion. I chose not to use the word “experience” or “feel” because I’m not completely convinced that we’re alone in the ability to experience emotion (Pavlov the dog looks so shameful when he does something wrong… you can’t tell me he’s not feeling *something*). But I’ll talk about that on another day.

Each of us display emotions to varying degrees and we experience emotions on different levels regardless of how intense the display of said emotions appear. The opposite is true as well. We may experience a similar level of emotional response to a stimuli but display completely different degrees of emotional reaction. Therefore, we can safely assume that it is difficult to judge a person’s emotional response based solely on their emotional display. Not only is it difficult, but to do so would also yield extremely unreliable results based more on subjective observation than anything else. In fact, emotions are next to impossible to measure in a concrete way because of the personal nature of internal reactions. The Reader’s Digest version: don’t judge an emotional book by it’s cover.

Another of the difficult-to-measure personal experiences that goes along with being a human are so-called “feelings”. I don’t refer to them as “so-called” because I don’t believe in them; instead, I refer to them in this manner because I’m not sure I like that word to describe them. But I’m only halfway done with my critique of our vocabulary - I don’t have any other word to describe the phenomenon better. So for now I’ll just go with “feelings” because we all know what that word describes.

In addition to their joint classification as hard to describe and/or measure, emotions and feelings are similar in that they are often linked together in some way. Most of the time we experience an emotional response to something and, if the initiating experience is somehow related to or directed towards us, it can have an effect on our feelings. If someone praises something you’ve done, you experience a happy emotional response and your feelings, or ego, are stroked. On the converse, if someone criticizes something you’ve done, you experience an unhappy emotional response and your feelings, or ego, are dented or hurt. Having your feelings hurt or your ego stroked, in turn, often leads to even more emotional responses and thus a cycle begins. Eventually the cycle comes to end… or at least it’s supposed to. If the cycle terminates as it should, we “move on” from whatever happened to initiate the emotion-feeling cycle in the first place. But if the cycle does not terminate, we’re left with a repeating cycle. You know people who hold grudges, right? A grudge is basically the result of a never-ending emotional-feeling cycle.

Now that I’ve tangented a bit, let me return to my original purpose. Feelings, like emotions, are hard to measure or even describe. We use terms such as “hurt” to describe a change in the way we feel about ourselves. Or, just as I did above, we say that our ego has been “stroked” when something makes us feel better about ourselves. We all know what those terms mean because we’ve experienced both personally. But try to explain what it means to have hurt feelings or a stroked ego to someone/something that’s never experienced them. It’s hard! Similarly, try and explain to someone else exactly how much your feelings were hurt… or how well your ego was stroked. Again, it’s very difficult.

Body language can give clues as to the emotional response a person is experiencing. Body language can also be of use in trying to figure out if someone’s feelings have been negatively or positively affected by something that has happened. But these clues are only glimpses or hints at best. There is absolutely no way for one person to know how or what or how intensely another person feels… or if they are feeling anything at all.

Some people are easier to read than others when it comes to feelings and emotions. There are people who wear their emotions on their sleeves and there are people who keep them buried deep inside. There are people who make it quite obvious when their feelings have been hurt and there are people who smile only on the inside when their ego has been stroked. And still yet there are people who try to keep their feelings and emotions under control, but do so poorly. I used to work with a woman who would try her hardest to keep the way she was feeling from becoming obvious. But you could always tell when something was bothering her or when there was something that she wanted to brag to you about. I used to work with a guy who seemed to have one emotion: lack of. When he laughed it seemed fake. When he frowned it seemed fake. But as I got to know him better, I realized that he was an emotional time bomb just waiting to explode. And when he finally popped… it wasn’t pretty.

In the past four days, four different people have told me that they were under the impression that I did not have feelings or emotions. One called me “cold and heartless”… another told me I had no feelings… and a third told me I had no feelings OR emotions. The fourth person told me that I had two emotions: happy and pissed. And a fifth person, who doesn’t get clumped in with the others since she said nothing about my feelings or emotions, told me that I either don’t notice or don’t care about the feelings and emotions of other people.

To the person who thinks I don’t notice or care about other’s feelings: you couldn’t be more mistaken. You have confused lack of concern for other people’s feelings with honesty. Dishonesty is my primary pet peeve. A lot of people will tell you what you want to hear. In an attempt to shield your feelings from the truth, they will tell you exactly what you want them to say regardless of whether or not it is the truth. The way they figure it, if your feelings are spared it will be much better for you emotionally. The way *I* figure it, they simply don’t want to deal with your feelings or emotions because it’s better for them… not you. All they are doing is putting off the inevitable. Because the truth always finds a way to the surface eventually. I’ll think about what you want to hear… and then I’ll throw it aside and tell you the truth… what you need to hear. Even if it means an unpleasant emotional response on your part, I can always be counted on to be honest. In the long run, the truth is always better than a lie. Perhaps I could work on my delivery (I tend to be a little on the blunt side from time to time). But subtle or not, I will never be convinced that it’s better to spare a person’s feelings at the sake of sparing the truth. If that makes me cold or heartless so be it. I’d rather be heartless than full of shit.

To those who suggested I had no feelings and/or emotions myself: you, unfortunately, are also mistaken. I do have feelings and I do have emotions other than happy and pissed. I am fully capable of feeling a wide range of emotions, and although sometimes it might appear that my ego is undentable, it is sadly not. I wish that it weren’t. But, like every single human alive, my feelings can be hurt, my ego can be stroked, and I can experience emotions.

I guess I’m writing about all of this because, frankly, my feelings are a little hurt. If the people that know me think I’m a cold, heartless, feelingless, emotionless robot then there’s a problem somewhere. Either these folks don’t get me… or I have a dysfunctional way of interacting with other people. My family knows I’m not any of those things. My closest friends know I’m none of those things as well. But it bothers me that, apparently, it takes knowing me *that* well to discover the obvious - *gasp* - I’m a fucking human, too!

Well… most of me, anyway…