Heart Container: Talking to Strangers
Growing up, my mother always told me not to talk to strangers- as did my crippling anxiety which, strangely enough, also took the shape of my mother. It might shock you that me, with my propensity toward oversharing online and my oftentimes overly eager politeness, had a very difficult time growing up due to social anxiety. Even now it acts as this sort of retractable leash, yanking me back unexpectedly or when I start to get too carried away.
It’s funny to think about how we don’t start out that way, though. One of the first “sentences” I learned as a child was, “hi there.” My mom has told me countless times how she used to push me through grocery stores, smiling embarrassedly as I chirped “hi there!” from that cold, metal seat and blew kisses at men and women alike. Yes, even as a two year old, I was training to become a bisexual icon.
In first grade, I was the loudest person on the playground. I popularized Pokémon in my class, as well as established a LARP version of the game at recess, which had to have been quite the experience for the teachers overseeing us. I was a god damn Girl Scout, badges ironed on to every inch of my little brown vest. I had the biggest birthday parties (including an elaborate Harry Potter themed one with scroll invitations, Quidditch, and potion making) and was generally, a pretty happy kid who always wanted everyone to be included in everything.
But, somewhere down the road, I learned to feel ashamed of myself. I could write out the laundry list of reasons and point every finger on both my hands at my parents, but regardless of the reasons, I grew incredibly unsure of myself. My body, my mannerisms, my interests, my body… they all seemed wrong. Everything about me, inside and out, seemed too big. So I learned to be small. I sort of retreated into my hobbies and self, devouring fiction and, if we’re being honest here, food as well. I started to only be able to have one friend over at time. It became basically this unspoken policy with my mom. Because, if I had more than two, I would shut down. I would try to find something else to do, even if that something else was merely hideout in my room. I grew convinced that I was so much lesser than anyone else that my presence didn’t matter. That I could leave and, genuinely, no one would care.
I remember the first time I experienced intense social anxiety. I was starting fourth grade at one of the thirteen different schools I would attend as a child and looking for a seat in this, retrospectively really fucking cool, technology class I was taking. I asked a boy if the seat next to him was taken and he smiled and said, “oh yeah, you can’t sit there.”
And I cried. And he felt terrible. He stood up, mouth agape, and tried to reassure me he was just being sarcastic- that he would like me to sit there. But the damage had been done. I was so certain there was no way that boy could be kidding because I was so far down the path of learning to hate Jessica I was certain others were walking right there beside me. Throughout life, I shot down compliments, invitations, friends, and intimacy because of that fatal 1-2 punch of anxiety and intense insecurity. It also completely stunted my ability to create boundaries for myself, leaving me incredibly vulnerable in spite of the wall I built around me.
But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more self aware. I’ve realized that despite how avoidant I can be of both strangers and even my dearest friends, I almost always feel better after talking to them. I’ve realized I am actually a fairly social person who was cut down to fit the mold of someone meek- that my avoidance was acquired, not inherent.
Strangely enough, I think it’s the games I turned to for comfort that helped me realize just how uncomfortable my self appointed isolation was. As lame as this may sound, years of pouring my heart into characters and stories made me long for a “party” of my own- a ragtag crew who’d stand beside me, through thick and thin. Fortunately, these games and feelings also served as a point of connection between myself and others.I think of my first friend Sarah, the person I shared beating my very first Zelda game with and the greatest Super Smash Bros Melee partner a girl could ask for, as well as my friend Courtney, who never judged how frequently I watched Final Fantasy: Advent Children because it was great background noise while she worked on her Kingdom Hearts fanfiction. It probably comes as no surprise when I tell you the majority of the friends I’ve made, including my husband, came about upon discovering a mutual love of games.
Over time I’ve developed a pretty good radar for potential friends, but something I’ve been trying to focus on as of late is the ability to talk to all types of people- to reach out, experience others, and value their stories and feelings without the intent of intense companionship. And just as how sprawling, story-driven RPGs helped push me to form meaningful relationships, I believe visual novels have aided me in understanding the value of a casual conversation.
This past January, I told myself this would be the year I made an actual effort to complete more games. My inability to finish games is something I’ve always felt a bit guilty about, seeing as, you know, I want to interact with them in some way, shape, or form for a living. While I do have this natural inclination towards massive series, I decided the gratification of getting a few smaller titles under my belt would be motivating. So, over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve played through Neo Cab, Coffee Talk, and VA-11 HALL-A.
In each of these three titles, you play as a service industry worker- a cab driver, barista, and bartender, respectively. These professions lend themselves well to this style of game, as providing weary patrons with a drink or drive is the least intensive part of your job and therefore the mechanics, quite naturally, come secondary to your interactions. Listening to customer’s stories and providing comfort, advice, or perhaps some much needed tough love make up the bulk of these games- and it’s enthralling. From conversations about automation, privacy, capitalism, discrimination, and censorship, to simply hearing out someone needing to vent about their boss or partner, these games do two important things: firstly, they introduce you to problems and ideas outside of your own and force you to confront them, and secondly, they make you feel less alone.
I started this article sitting at a table in a small cafe down the road from my work. It was the first time I had ever set foot in the place, but I could tell quite the opposite was true for the majority of the business’ patrons. There was a universal raport, and even those with new faces seemed to be able to jump into polite conversations with ease. I admit I was a bit jealous of how easy they made integration look. But then they roped me in on the operation. A woman told me my makeup looked fantastic, and next thing I knew we had slipped into a conversation about beauty trends. A few moments later, a man gestured toward the seat next to me and asked if it was taken. Once I said no,he sat down beside me, pulled out his own laptop, and typed away at his own word document for a bit before asking me what I was working on. When I went to work later that day, a regular customer came in distraught and shared with me his mother had just passed away. He told me about her life and the variety of fights and problems they had had, but mostly he spoke about how much he loved and missed her.
I think we always have this natural urge to close ourselves off when people get a bit too comfortable with us- when they get emotional or share with information we have decided is too personal. And to be fair, we absolutely have the right to draw our boundaries and decide what it truly is too much and makes us feel uneasy. But at that moment, I just saw a vulnerable person who needed someone to hear him out and honestly, I was in awe. I was in awe that someone could allow themselves to bleed so freely- to permit themselves to connect with someone and share their emotions. And while my heart felt a bit heavy after the interaction, I think we both walked away feeling a little bit less alone.
Allowing yourself to be open and engage others lessens the burden of living. It makes us realize the human experience is exactly that- a human experience. Though we all feel and experience life quite differently, vulnerable conversation allows us to discover our commonalities as well as demand differences are understood. So many of us are quick to stress the importance of engaging with books and other media to learn, or to tell others to travel to better take in the world. But what are books but a human’s ideas put on paper, and what is a place but a collective of humans and the culture they’ve created?
Just as we take in media, I believe we need to take in people. And when I say this I don’t mean you need to fly to some place we’ve exoticized and take in their culture so you can walk away feeling as if you’ve conquered understanding, nor do I mean you need to hear out your shitty, transphobic uncle because “we should all be positive” and “every opinion is valid.” No. All I mean is I think we need to genuinely give a shit about the people around us and approach them with openness and honesty. I think we need to give people a chance and try to connect. And I know that can be uncomfortable, but god, I really feel it might be worth it. I guess all this to say, I think we owe it to ourselves to be vulnerable. And more than anything, I think we owe it to ourselves to remember and be who we wanted to be before the world tried to convince us that was wrong.
