No One Who Is Real Is Boring

I forget who wrote this, but a famous socialite who threw the A+ parties at the time would always write at the end of her immaculately printed invitations this line: "And remember, no one who is real is boring." I just love that. It is a wonderful reminder of the responsibility we should aspire to when we attend a friend's party or walk through our lives---don't be boring. It also reminds us of the fact that if we do not spend a lot of energy putting on false fronts and just be open to whoever and whatever we meet, we will avoid being boring. Easier said than done for most people of all ages because most of us struggle with what it means to be "real." If only we had a model for what that would look like.

I have found one.

There is a T.V. show called "An Idiot Abroad." In it, Ricky Gervais sends a man he describes as a total idiot around the world to see several great sites of the world. The Great Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, and The Great Wall are just a few he has shown to the man named Karl Pilkington, who is the supposed idiot of the show. I was reluctant to watch it because he had done an earlier show featuring Karl in conversations and Ricky would just laugh and insult him through out the show which was too painful for me to watch. I approached this new show with reluctant suspicion.

After watching several episodes, my take of the show was simply: I love Karl Pilkington. Karl is a 30ish, British man with an admittedly oddly shaped bald head, which makes him look slightly, well...odd, but I just absolutely adore this man and how he thinks and expresses himself. He is the farthest thing from an idiot, and he is definitely NOT boring. He is the model for "real." He simply experiences what is before him with absolute honesty and openness and has no pretense available to him much to his numerous host's dismay at times. As a dinner guest in the tent of a family in the desert, he was shown some of the raw animal parts being served for the meal. When offered a raw sheep eyeball and told not to insult his host he turned to the cameraman and whispered, "Well the problem is I gag really easily, and if I put that in my mouth and gagged, won't that be really worse for them to see me do that than if I just don't eat it, eh?" "That would kind of be worse don't you think because there is no way I can eat that thing." His approach and reaction to everything he sees is brilliantly real, honest, and direct. When he is forced to ride with Hare Krishnas in a bus who get out and dance whenever the bus stops in traffic he reluctantly joins and dances, but says to the camera man, "I know they think this brings happiness to others, all this dancing about, but what if I had my sick mum in an ambulance behind all this trying to get to the hospital...not so happy then, would you be? Isn't that right?"

He is the perfect model for what being "real" means: absolutely uncensored, well meaning, but sometimes stepping on toes as he reacts honestly. I also realized an interesting and rare trait: he never says anything that does not carry an emotion with it. He says nothing that is emotionally neutral. Everything he says carries a vibrancy of emotion whether it is anger, disgust, happiness, fear, embarrassment, whatever, everything he says feels alive. He is certainly never boring.

So why is this trait, this thing we call "real" so rare? Because to be real we have to be vulnerable to whatever comes our way and that is frightening (see Fundamental 1 in my book). Who wants to be vulnerable when we can (at least) appear powerful? We talk of our successes not our failures. We express our happiness in our relationships, not the thorns that are presently catching our shirts. We do not express our fears, and sometimes we can't even say we like a certain song for fear of ridicule by someone musically "smarter" than us. So we emotionally hunch over in our lives and express whatever we can with the hopes that we will appear all together and happy. It sometimes comes off as boring though.

I'm thinking about hosting an "idiot's" party soon. Wanna come? Can you not be boring? Think about that first.

"I'd Rather Be With Anyone Than Alone"

Let's face it, boiled down to it's basics, counseling people is mostly about helping people deal with their pain and unhappiness. Relationships are a common arena where many people experience pain and unhappiness. Let me talk about one belief, rarely discussed, that causes much pain in relationships. It's a belief that both causes people to enter the wrong kind of relationship, and to stay in a negative one for too long.

The one statement/belief that greatly contributes to prolonged unhappiness in many relationships, dating and marital, is: "I'd rather be with anyone than alone." This feeling is one of the most common statements I hear from people ages 15-60 regarding relationships in general. So how does this statement cause pain? To begin with, it implies that people would rather be in a relationship of any kind, unhappy or not, than be alone---that being alone is worse than being in a negative, unfulfilling relationship. This statement says, "I'll bear whatever negativity there is in my relationship, no matter how extreme, than be without one." I have found this to be a major contributor to the prolonged pain people endure in relationships.

There is always conflict in relationships over time, that is a given. But what we do with that conflict is the real crux to whether the relationship flourishes or decays. The next step in dealing with a conflict involves the couple's willingness to discuss and work on the issue, but even that is affected by this statement because if I am terrified of losing the relationship and being alone, I probably will be reluctant to even address the problem for fear that discussing it might cause a blow up and a break-up. It might be safer to ignore and just bear the problem. If I'd rather be with anyone than alone then I will probably ignore everything I am unhappy with in the relationship so as not to cause waves. This causes any love in the relationship to decay and resentments to build up. So this belief causes people to both initially ignore conflict, avoid problem solving, and ultimately resist leaving a relationship that is beyond resolution. Both actions prolong pain in relationship.

I rarely counsel teenagers, but recently I had a seventeen year old boy talking about the suffering his girlfriend at college puts him through. It was horrible to hear. She said every insulting and degrading thing she could to him whenever she felt he was not being a "good enough" boyfriend. She truly was unreasonable in her complaints of his talking to anyone else but her or wanting to do activities with his friends, but he simply took it and felt worse and worse over time. He only came to see me because his parents insisted I try to "talk some sense into him" and get him to leave this shrew of a girlfriend. When I asked why he stayed he said she was the first girl who showed interest in him, and he'd rather...well, you know. The other side of the coin is his girlfriend who would rather verbally abuse this guy three times a week and be in a constant state of frustration than find someone more suitable to her needs. She would rather beat a slow horse to death than risk looking for a faster one. Rather than ignore the conflict as many do, she went to the other extreme and frantically tried to emotionally "beat" the change into him. Both were unhappy, and both were too scared to move on. She talked about marrying him in a year. He said he saw no solution to her unreasonable demands and complaints, but would probably marry her.

This issue also affects whom we choose as a partner in the first place. It sets up an expectation that I have got to have someone/anyone around me at all times lest I feel the horrors of being alone. That means a dysfunctional person is better than no one. We can see this when people surround themselves with empty "frenemies" who take advantage of the relationship every chance they get, but are not helpful or supportive in any way. This belief also causes extremely negative relationships to continue for too long. What is it about being alone that makes so many of us choose continued unhappiness over it?

Everyone is terrified. I'll leave the discussion here for now...