Let’s Talk! – An Uncomfortable Relative

Are you ready to switch off your screens and ponder or discuss another writing/conversation prompt during dinner tonight? You want to know about my thoughts on it? Here’s my take:

Don’t we all have one? An uncomfortable relative? Maybe even more than one? The one that gives you extra-trouble with extra-wishes just because they seem to need the attention? The one that teases you until you burst into tears (I had such a one, and I only kind of reconciled later after I graduated from university)? The one that points out your physical flaws when you are a teenager desperately trying to fit in? Such as pimples. Or weight issues. Or whatever else there could be. The ones that ask whether one hasn’t a boy- or girl-friend yet and why that is? The one that asks why you don’t have children? The person who asks how much money you make? The one who never can keep a secret, neither yours nor that of anybody else, so you have to watch out for what you utter? The one who tries to compete with you all the time or holds their children against yours, boasting with their accomplishments? Those meddling in private affairs that are nobody else’s business? Those criticizing your lifestyle? Those that taunt you with a smile?

They raise our hackles. They ruin phone calls and visits. They seem smug and sometimes even unaware of how insensitive they act. We like them best when they leave. And yet we mostly put up with their shenanigans for whatever reason. Can we call blood reason?

But wait! What if we ourselves are such an uncomfortable relative?! Maybe deemed insensitive?! What if somebody is relieved when we leave a family event or hang up on the phone?!

Apparently, I even mystified my mother all our joint life long – she told me as much in her last year in life. I keep pondering whether she felt uncomfortable around me sometimes. The overly serious child that was the happiest with a book in a corner from the get-go. The outsider at parties. The wallflower. The quiet dreamer with tomboy qualities. The performer, academically as well as artistically. Always in a world by herself. How do you relate when the other is seemingly evasive? Even if they are not meaning to be that way; they simply ARE.

Maybe, others felt uncomfortable around me because I was the only girl-child on one side of the family. Maybe others thought me too ambitious. A perfectionist. Precocious. Unrealistic? Strange because seemingly down the road to spinsterhood at one point. Who knows? I’ll certainly not ask. Nobody does that.

My guess is that we all are somebody’s uncomfortable relative at one point or another. We can try and put ourselves as much into somebody else’s shoes as we can. In the end, we might still end up saying something wrong, acting wrong at the spur of the moment (and here I’m not talking long-pondered speeches or actions). Maybe, we are glad to leave when we realize this has happened. Or we simply try to make a joke of it to hide our embarrassment, and mend fences. And continue to be who we can’t help to be.