on honesty

Lately I have been telling the truth.

Not all the time, or at least not unwarranted and without cause. There's a difference between candor and narcissistic over-sharing, and a difference between honesty in all things and callous disregard for the polite lies that help the day go smoother.

I've known many people that say some variation of "the thing about me is, I don't PLAY games," and without fail that person is either guilelessly unaware of how to deal with most people, constantly hurt and offended or confused, or they're actually saying it as a de-facto power play in itself, positioning him or herself as an authority by claiming to be in touch with some higher order of dealing with people, of some sense of self that lesser plebeians can't articulate (hence all the pathetic "game playing").

The more I think about it, the more I feel pretty much every interaction with another human being is some sort of game. If you're lucky, maybe your parents love you unconditionally and require no pretenses -and even though I AM that lucky I have trouble being honest with THEM. If you're even luckier, you love someone and they love you back, and they come to know parts of you that no one else ever will, and it's not so much a game between you as a dance of mutual satisfaction, balancing exposure and time and meals and smells and the little parts of your lives.

But those relationships have complex games of their own anyway, and all the less meaningful ones, friendships and co-workers, distant relatives and near, people on the subway or in the next car at the stoplight, audience members, anyone: all of these interactions are with other people. All of these other people have known sorts of specific loneliness and pain and terror and happiness that you'll never know, they've lived an entire life that you'll never see, and you're nothing but a degree of supporting role, recurring cast or fleeting unpaid extra.

So you talk to them, and you have no idea what could set them off- either good or bad. They are hurricanes of subconscious bias and buried memory, of unknown predilection and mystery. Some days I stay at home until night falls and then go out to a show and wonder what stress everyone's known, what the rhythm of their day was like and what the right words would be to even ask them about it.

The disappointing truth though, is that simple salutations and platitudes really do apply, the 'how was your day?' and 'how have you been?' type phrases that seem like conceding defeat in this great conversational game -the goal of which seems to mostly be to seem interesting all of the time, and thus to have something unique and interesting to say.

So you ask a simple question, or say a simple hello, and that's when the game really starts, because then there's usually a choice. People will say they're fine, and if you've talked to them a little bit you can hear if they say it with a weary sigh or note of exasperation and then ask "really?" and see if they open up. Or maybe they've asked you first, and you can choose to respond with a platitude (if one applies), or the truth, which is usually more complex.

The thing is, everyone's life appears linear from the outside, but you know that your inner life is as non-linear as your thoughts are. The moment to moments are wistful, scared, euphoric, laughter and depression and a song stuck in your head. All of these broken records play at once, all the waking day, and from far away this all looks like a collage of what everyone else perceives you to be, the person you present to the world.

And all it takes is the rare admission, in the right moment, that you contain this sort of multitude and you become real to the person you're talking to.

To be fair though, it's NOT as binary as the distinction between saying the rote "Oh, I'm fine" and the admission that everything can't always be fine- sometimes you skip the platitudes for specific details, anecdotes from the week, whatever was on your mind when you walked up- the song that's stuck in your head.

I'm lucky in that I've been afforded the life circumstances to have tried comedy a long time ago and thus kind of found a way to cheat at this navigation, because the more truth I put into that, the easier the game gets to play. It's mostly because until I got really into stand up a couple of years ago I had never really actively tried to improve at playing any aspect of it, to concern myself with living in the world, with sharing the wound I feel but can't articulate as well as I'd like and wondering if other people have it, too.

And once those barriers started to fall, the others started to follow, and basically in no way do I excel at any facet of interpersonal communication these days except that I think about trying at it a lot more. And when I try, I say things that are true (except when the truth wouldn't serve the right purpose).

I am still bad at getting back to my parents, for many of the same reasons my credit score is so bad these days. I have secrets in my heart and life that I know now I need to share with someone before I could feel that they truly loved me, and I've made the mistake plenty of times of not sharing those secrets and then wondering why I wasn't loved. I miss opportunities to comfort people, miss the point of what people are saying while concerned with my own anxious fears, check my phone for texts when people are making a point, and generally I look back at social interactions obsessively after the fact and wonder why I wasn't in the moment more.

But the truth is that I'm more willing to try than ever, and I get closer to the world I live in whenever I admit that willingness, and all of the flaws and missteps and bumbling that it brings with it to the surface.

So ask me how it's going, or I'll ask you. I'll play this game.