Saloon for Intellectualized Emotions
by Sopho Kharazi
© Sopho Kharazi
We were sitting with my friend on the balcony, sipping red wine, smoking cigarettes, and discussing my piece on Emotions, Fears, and Sluts. We were joking about how unintentionally we happened to open a saloon for intellectualized emotions. In my friend group which consists of young women, we spend a lot of time talking about our feelings, inner struggles, and ways we spiritually grew throughout the years. However, during that balcony talk, I and my friend concluded that despite always discussing those topics, we still do it in an intellectualized way, through critical theories, philosophy, and psychology. In other words, we share an analysis of what we feel rather than share directly how we feel. The chronological pattern is usually the same, we feel alone and then collectively examine why we feel what we feel.
In my case, this happens not only with friends but also with partners. And as we are intellectual women, I and my friend started to dwell on that topic, attempting to understand why this happens. My friend shared a very interesting statement that today’s dating scene is mostly based on self-defense. In other words, who will defend oneself better? And of course, you do not have to be a genius to understand that it all comes from being hurt in the past. So, the fear of being hurt again prevents us from communicating our feelings absolutely vulnerably. As a result, we utilize a self-defensive approach to what to say, why to say it, and how to say it. Subsequently, the direction of the communication begins to be based on the statements made in self-defensive mode by one party which is usually met with the self-defensive response of the second party. It is like a ping-pong game. When one starts, it is very hard to end the game unless someone in that relationship is mature enough to break the cycle and start communicating genuinely.
I was casually dating this guy who I really liked in the beginning and he liked me. I even tried to overstep my comfort zone and exhibit more attention to him than usual. However, I still made sure I was not too much. One day, I was leaving to travel and we were saying goodbye. He said those exact words: “Update me about your life but not too much.”
That really struck me and made me smirk cynically because I realized that he is one of those people too which was kind of a massive disappointment for me. In response, I shut down to protect myself from being hurt again. In other words, I fulfilled his request in an extreme way – I stopped sharing anything unless he asked and ironically, he became that person who would ask me bazillion questions about what is new in my life and how I am feeling. But unfortunately, the ping-pong game he started created this fear in me, so our relationship also became a competition of who will defend oneself better; let me tell you, I can be very cruel in that game. And I feel that once this game is introduced on the stage, it is very hard to reach a healthy pattern of communication. So, it makes me think, once a self-defense game begins, should it be considered a red flag that justifies the end of the relationship or should the relationship be given a chance because self-defense is not such a tragic thing?