I am what I like to think a deeply empathic person. I feel for the misery and plights of others - be they strangers or friends, be they of any creed or color. I can put myself immediately into that other person's shoes and experience their good news first hand. I would like to think this is an element that makes me maybe not a good friend but a trusted one.
However, theres a fucking limit to it. And you know I'm somewhere near that limit if I'm using the word "fucking" to emphasize it.
To quote the late, great George Carlin - "I don't have pet peeves, I have major, psychotic fucking hatreds" and thats true. Thats the other side of the deep empathy of people - the complete and utter revulsion of them. That is to say I can emphasize with people but it is such a tenuous and exhausting skill that I am an introvert by nature; dealing with people is literally the most exhausting thing I can experience.
So thats the set-up, and heres the meat of the joke.
I purposely delineate all parts of my life from the next. My personal life does not affect my work, my work life does not affect my family life, my family life does not affect some ... other thing that I can't think of right now. But everything is compartmentalized: I do this on purpose. I don't like bleed through. I do not like parts of my life interacting with other parts. If I am dating a girl and she asks me about my job, I'll likely shrug it off. I don't do this to be rude but my work life is exceedingly disinteresting; more over, I don't want to talk about work outside of work. Similarly, I don't want to talk about who I'm dating with those I work with. I haven't told my mother about any dating I've done since probably 2006.
Now I realize that not everyone works this way and thats fine. But there is a boundary involved here that some people see and most people don't. The line is this: don't try to drag me across into your own values. If I do not want to mix my personal life with my work life, it needs to be accepted that way and thats it. My job is not who I am, its merely what I do. I do not wrap myself in the flag, I feel no loyalty to an employer past collecting another paycheck. Thats all I am there for and don't ever think otherwise.
I do not view my job as a second family.
I view my job as getting paid for having to deal with people I would otherwise avoid.
Similar to the line in the sand about values, as a rule, I don't talk about things like religion or personal opinions often. Its cheap, its chinzy and let me be totally honest (and an asshole) when I say that every one of these discussions at work end up with four people trying to out-yell the others, before they turn to me. "Well, see, I'm leaning more toward the concept that God is only the outward expression of Man's own inward nature as detailed by..." and then I realize I've totally lost everyone already. I am by no means a profoundly smart person - I am simply a well-learned idiot - but I also have no tolerance for people who want to swim in an intellectual ocean with water wings for an IQ. It also doesn't help that I am atheistic but don't identify as with atheist groups. Frankly, I think having a belief system of any kind is stupid; the moment you discard your safety net of an assumed reality, you take things as they come a lot better. Its not always easy but its much easier to cope with reality when you're allowing yourself to
Now where does all this come from?
A coworker of mine has had a family loss. I feel nothing but sad things for him because he's honestly a very nice person and I like his company quite a bit. However, someone else in the department suggested-to-the-point-of-commanding that we get a sympathy card.
And I realize my opinion of not wanting to sign it makes me out to be a monster, but at the same time, I didn't ask for nor did I get one when anyone from my family or friends passed. The point there isn't "I didn't get one, so why should they" sour grapes as it is "I didn't get one because I don't feel comfortable with it; why should I send one too if it makes me uncomfortable?"
I think this is a valid opinion. Its not one made in cruelty or emotion. Its simply saying "I do not want to be involved on this level." Because I purposely bond with very, very few people and I do not want to diminish that capacity by being shoehorned or be made guilty into doing something half-heartedly.
This is a huge reason why I need to leave my job. They are asking too much from me in this way. It is draining. It is vexing. And more over, I find it intrusive in the most horrible way. I am not at my job to peddle my soul to people who do not know me past what I allow them (nor do I ask them to peak into my soul to validate their intrusive nature). I am there to put money in my pocket. Were I to leave it tomorrow, aside from two people, I would not know the other two hundred or so people I see every week. I did not choose to know them; its membership by osmosis in the same way that we're all human - but so the fuck what?
The funny thing is is that my demanding these barriers, and this distance is purely because I do not have barriers and distance with my few close friends.
I am as human as the next person. But I prefer to be human over there.
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