Imagine you have a new sense - like all your other senses, it's constantly there - you can tune it out or choose to ignore it to some degree - but you can't stop this sense any more than you can will yourself deaf or blind or to "not taste" - and when someone is "screaming" or when there's a "strobe light" - you can't even do that.

This sense is based around people, you can "hear" (see? whatever - choose a sensory word to use =)) their emotions. Maybe someone new has a slightly different accent, maybe some people are a whole language unto themselves to learn... but you can clearly hear / see / sense emotions just as easy as you can see the color of a shirt or hear a radio someone is playing.

When a person says to you how angry they are about what their girlfriend just did... you hear a second version of them saying at the same time "I'm so afraid of losing her and I feel powerless and scared in the face of this and I hate that!" or maybe it's not words, you just feel / see the fear and frustration yourself when they talk (and maybe you've learned what that means, where it comes from, maybe you haven't.)

You see how how your friend's hands move and change and how everything about him shifts when he talks about that girl he hasn't told anyone he likes yet.

When your parents used to fight - it drove you crazy - you could hear what the first one was trying to say... and what the second one actually heard (or thought they heard) and the lack of understanding was infuriating... and heart breaking and you tried to explain things, you still try to explain things.

But it's more than that... it's walking through a mall and knowing how the person walking by you thinks just by looking at them... it's seeing the shape of their emotions, their "mindset" written on them, it's knowing people without even talking to them.

Maybe you read fantasy books and thought "empathy" - maybe you just think you're naturally good at reading body language, hearing the tones in a person's voice and putting it all together. But it's not quite like either of those exactly... maybe something in between.

Maybe... being aware of this stuff has taught you a little clearer, a little more directly that other people matter - that what you do affects them. It's made you a little more considerate, a little more thoughtful of others. Or maybe it's made you believe you can really change people or fix things.

Or maybe it's just made it easy for you to say the right things (you can tell what they want / need to hear) and get what you want.

Or maybe it's made you "co-dependent" or a "trauma seeker" - spending all your time taking care of those around you, helping, spending your time and energy on the people who are hurting - since it's so obvious to you that they're crying for help, even if others can't see it and don't seem to care...

Maybe not.

I dunno. Maybe you're like 99% of the world and when people walk by you - you can't tell what their thinking, you can't tell what they're dealing with - you can't "see" their emotions written all over them... maybe you can't see how your words affect people, maybe you don't have a receptor for "subtlety" and find it incredibly frustrating that people expect you to know things with out them actually *telling* you (doesn't that drive you nuts?)

Or maybe you listen to someone for five minutes and you already know how they feel inside, sometimes even the stuff they won't admit to themselves.

Emotional Sensory Perception? A sixth sense?

I don't know - you tell me.

I wrote this this morning in response to some thoughts that have been floating around in my head for a bit - it's not aimed at anyone specific (not even in a passive aggressive "I kinda hope my ex reads this somehow and thinks it's about her" kinda way =)) it's just ... well... my frustration with the way the world has worked recently coming out. Just too many people have been telling me (or the world) how much of a right they have to do whatever they want and not be held responsible ... that they still deserve all the love and effort of others, despite what they do and continue to do... and it's getting to me.

This is how it came out... it may seem a little stupid, it's written in anger and that's never really good for quality thought but... well, here it is.

Birthpains of Adulthood
--------------------------

My definition of adulthood is when you realize...

You cannot expect others to love and care for you, if all you're willing to do is care about yourself.

People will fall in love with you, you'll fall in love with them. But the relationship won't last unless you make them a priority and care about them.

Caring for others is not about feeling love, we all feel love. You can feel love for someone and still be acting like you don't care about them. This is how you lose the people you love.

Re-read that last paragraph - it's the answer to damn near all relationship problems. Every time the person you love is upset with you - that's probably what's going on. You've acted in a way that (they see at least) as being uncaring. And usually (not always, sure, but usually) if you couldn't see that - you weren't caring.

If they're not your priority, if you act like they don't matter, it doesn't matter how you *feel* - you can feel all the love in the world, it doesn't make a bit of difference.

All your feelings affect... is how badly it hurts when they leave.

Your actions decide *whether* they leave.

Act like they matter, or lose them.

Eventually, no matter how much the other person loves you, they just can't continue being uncared for. This isn't a lack in their love.

Think of others, be good, be caring - or be unloved, alone and abandoned.

Whine about it all you want - every immature selfish person I know has a list of excuses why *they* are different... but it doesn't change anything. None of it matters if you want to keep the people you love in your life. Well, strike that - if you're particularly good at being manipulative you can keep people longer, twist things and make them feel it's their fault they're not being cared for - but that's nothing to be proud of.

Grow up selfish people! You're wasting life (yours and everyone who loves you) until you do.

Blegh.
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Angry, ranty. *sigh*.

For all those who just read some random dudes journal entry and now feel attacked or suddenly want to write me explaining why it's *ok* that you don't act caring to your s.o or that being selfish is totally good for the world and I don't know what I'm talking about... ok, I ranted - you can rant to, I'll try to remember you were angry and stupid when you write too.

Reading over it now... I can think of one thing immediately that I left out ... "act like you care" should be rewritten probably through the whole thing as "act in a way so that your mate can feel / understand / see that you care" ... which brings love languages (good book "5 languages of love" I think it's called) into it ... you can be acting like you care in a way that they can't "hear" or understand - and that's just not much good for the emotional well being of everything (though sometimes it helps to know they're doing *something* - even if it's not what you need) ...

And ... well, some people *are* just crazy. If you did everything they "need" ... damn... but still, if you love em, you gotta figure *something* out, get em therapy, or just accept that the person you love needs more than usual and either go with it or walk away if you can't... or...
double blegh.

... Enough, there's my rant - good love to everybody...
thanks for your time.
-me

In response to Just to have a Journal Entry =) by Gabriel_Night:

Okcupid says posting a thousand words will make me more "complete" =) I'm cool with that =)

I figure the front page will be the quick stuff people need to know... but if anyone wants to know more about my past or the like - I can do a bit of a life story here =) Naturally, considering the site and all - I'll focus on relationships...

I fell in love the first time when I was 6 or so, my best friend J.R and I were inseparable (no I didn't fall for him =)) His family was visiting friends and I tagged along as we often did (his mom basically considered me her kid too, which meant a lot to me at that age - my parents being good people but not particularly attentive). The friends we were visiting had a daughter named Heather. She had long brown hair, fair skin and was (in my six year old judgement) amazingly beautiful. I fell in love at first sight... she felt the same way and we basically sat staring at each other and holding hands for hours. JR and his sister Jessica, amused by our besottedness, even left us alone for a while so we could have privacy and do "stuff" - I don't think we particularly noticed, we just kept being happy and being together. Holding her hand and looking at her... what I remember most was the warmth of the feeling that was inside me, it filled me up completely and it jsut seemed right that we both felt it - it never occured to me how lucky I was it wasn't just one way - the connection to heather, I didn't understand it but I wanted very much for it to continue forever...

This at age six =) I just never had the "girls are icky" stage =)

Eventually we came out of the room we'd been left in and JR and Jessica were waiting for us in the hallway - somehow in the course of sitting indian style on the couch and staring and holding hands with Heather, my little kid cordory pants had their button fly come undone - a not unusual occurance with my cheap second hand clothing - but JR noticed and immediately assumed we had "done it" while we were alone.

This was my introduction to love. Everything else pretty much follows from there.

I only ever got to see Heather again one other time - I wanted to see her constantly but I had no way to get to her or communicate with her (talking to JR's parents about it seemed wrong somehow) - I think it was almost a year later when her parents took her over to our community pool and we all spent an afternoon swimming and playing together, I don't remember much of the day except I was infused with the same feelings as before and thought she was stunning in her one piece swimsuit, and once when I was swimming underwater I touched her leg and thought myself very adventerous.

Despite it being a story of tragic separation (in retrospect I doubt she lived more than a couple miles away...) I had found love and found out how incredible it was ... I never really turned back after that, the rest of my life is just one love story after another - some epic, some unrequited, some fantastic and some dysfunctional... but always I've been constantly searching for that connection, that rightness again - and wanting it in my life constantly since then.

This, of course, mixed with youth, developing levels of consideration, awareness, empathy, relationship maturity, etc... has not always worked out for the best =) But... I don't regret it at all, I've learned something (and sometimes sooo much) from the relationships I've been in and I like to think I've become a better person with a better understanding of people and right and wrong and love and *everything* from my experiences... and I still have hopes of finding that level of connection again... and again - and sharing that for the rest of my life.