Past present and future

The more things change the more they stay the same. A cliché to be sure but even clichés contain some truth. Years ago, telephones were misused by misguided individuals to harass other people. Telephone harassment has for the most part disappeared with the advent of call display and call blocking. Now it’s the internet. Several sites and of course the usenet allow misguided individuals to spread rumours, slander or just to rant with relative impunity. Trouble is, they tend to make their victims somewhat skittish and reluctant to allow legitimately friendly overtures. When someone who means these people no harm simply says hello, they get shut down. It has become reflex by this point.

It’s the old ‘bad apple’ syndrome. Buy one bad apple from a merchant and nothing that merchant can do with entice you back into his store. Men who harass and stalk women make it doubly difficult for decent men to even approach them. Communication between the sexes is difficult at the best of times and establishing trust on either side a slow process. Each of us bases our level of trust in another person on our experiences. The more we get burned, the less likely we are to open up to the next person. Over the years we build up scar tissue just the same as we would over a physical injury.

Scar tissue unfortunately, is not very flexible. We tend to prejudge others as soon as they match a pattern we’ve seen before. All of us, whether consciously or not, slot new people we meet into categories based on our past experiences. Some are to be embraced, some held at a distance, others avoided altogether. Prejudging may be wrong and definitely inaccurate but we all do it because it saves time and pain if it allows us to avoid one wrong move. Trouble is, it also prevents us from many of the right moves. People who mean us no harm and who in fact might very well be supportive and helpful to us are often shunned simply because they remind us of someone else.

For many years I fancied myself to be in love with a close friend. She often pointed out that the real problem was that I am and will forever be, a hopeless romantic. You see it wasn’t her I was in love with. Oh I loved her and a part of me still does. I was not in love with her though. I was in love with the idea of being in love. I didn’t see the difference until quite late in life when I finally did fall in love. Not the same thing at all. Now I finally understand what she was able to see all those years ago. Sadly, in the process of learning this and establishing a new life, I lost the friend--too bad, for I owe her a great deal. You see, she taught me the difference between loving someone and being ‘in love’ with them.

I love my friends and I care about all of them, even the ones who no longer speak to me. I made a serious mistake with her trying to push the friendship into areas it was never meant to go. I see that so clearly now but hindsight always was 20/20. Looking back I can see she was worth far more to me as a friend. Lust has a funny way of clouding men’s judgment that way. Now that I’m older sex is not the be all and end all it was back then. I can enjoy a woman’s company without the tension that was always there in the past. I’m happily married and not looking for anything else on the side. For the first time in my life I am beginning to appreciate the other half of the human race on their own merits rather than as a collection of interesting body parts.

What a shame we only start to figure out this thing called life as we begin the final quarter of the game. With my luck it’ll all make sense to me just as the heart monitor begins its long drawn out beep. Until then however, I try to grow and learn. I make fewer mistakes now and move on quicker. The past may shape how we react to the present but the future is in our own hands. Experience is a guide but should not be a straight jacket.