How to Play Well With Others

December 29th, 2006 at 02:21am Jamie Lynn Miller 16

My brother and I have drifted in and out of connection in my life.  About 8 years ago, I embarked on a soul-searching solo road trip back to my formative stomping grounds.  I took an important detour at my brother’s new house, for a peek at his adult life and an attempt to fit into it, to see who I was now that we were all grown up.  I had formed opinions, and I tested them out to see how they sounded outside of my head.  I had hoped to find respect but still seemed to find arguments and the necessity of defending my thoughts and positions.  He always said I was too defensive; that he could never talk to me about anything.  I had always thought he was too OFFensive: not that he offended me, per se, but that he spoke to me in a way that provoked a reaction.  I was the little sister, in all ways.  But I always wanted to be his equal, not his young grasshopper.

I planned on staying a few days but by day two, we had reached the point of no return.   A showdown, or should I say meltdown, was inevitable.  I had specific questions on my mind, at this point in my life.  What was his opinion on my nomadic lifestyle, and my choices?  What did he think about me not being even close to married?  What did he think of what I was doing?  What would our dad think? 

Dad, who had passed away when I was 19 and my brother was 22.  And now I was 28, and he was 31, and my bohemian lifestyle had led me back to my brother’s doorstep, looking for answers on how to live my life. 

Why did I care what my brother thought? Because I always had.  Sometimes I think my only brush with coolness as a teenager was the fact that I was Rick Miller’s sister.  I always looked up to my brother and always wanted him to accept me as part of his circle.  I wanted him to like me, I wanted his friends to like me; I dated or had crushes on his friends, in an attempt to get closer to my brother and feel accepted, but I had severely misjudged that one; older brothers don’t like their friends to mess around with their younger sisters.

When I go home, and look at old picture albums, I think I had about 15 awkward years.  The 80’s were a harsh decade for teenaged girls.   But my brother, pitcher on the baseball team, fishing with his buddies, playing with his dogs and passing his bar exam: he’d always seemed to have it going on.

His musical tastes were to become mine; Men at Work and Asia and the Zombies and the Beatles, all hip and cutting edge coming from my older brother’s room in 1983.  I remember he got me a gift certificate for a cassette of my choice at the local record store, and was crushed when I came back with Morris Day and the Time. He hadn’t bargained on little sisters having other influences.  I’ll never forget the only time I was ever grounded, my punishment being that I had to stay home Saturday night and miss the Squeeze concert we had tickets to see, just Rick and I.   I still haven’t gotten over that one.

In 1998, my brother was engaged, was a lawyer, had a house.  He still had the dogs and a guitar and he played hockey and he was still really cool.  But wasn’t I cool yet?  Living in Colorado, driving across the west on my own, teaching skiing, skiing, fitting my whole life in my car, able to pick up and leave when the muse hit me – why didn’t he want to get to know me?

Our altercation escalated, and I felt an urgency to connect to him. To get to the bottom of why we couldn’t relate to each other better, and to make myself as known as I could before I drove off.  

I asked him how he felt after Dad died. 

He got upset, and his voice filled with tears.

“I’m not dad, and I never will be.  I can’t be.  I had to be Dad for you, and mom, and Lisa and Carrie, who are older than me.  I was the man in the family all of a sudden, and I could never be Dad.  I can never be Dad.” 

I started to cry, and he continued to mourn, putting his head in his hands. 

There was no turning back. I asked him what he thought of me, really.  What he really thought of me, and how I was leading my life. 

He looked up.  He told me I looked pretty damn good in a two-day old shirt.  What he meant, he said, was that I was beautiful.  And then he told me what he wished for me most.  I braced myself.  He said my number one problem was that I cared too much about other people’s opinions.  He said he wished I would stop worrying about what other people think. 

Flash forward, 8 years later than then.  I made a new friend, one that made me wonder how I looked when I saw him, wonder when I would see him, and how our conversation would go.

Whenever I’d see him, he’d be at work, so there was only so much interaction and then I’d have to mosey off and leave him to his post.  Sometimes, I’d feel I’d outstayed my chit chat session and get a little self-conscious, like maybe it was becoming overly obvious that I had a crush.  Because I did.  Fun to feel that flush, that smile, that energy back.  The important part was not the outcome, but the mere act of having a crush.   

I finally saw him off work.  He was at neither job, but there he was, smiling and talking to me, on his own time.  I tried to be natural and suppress my pleasant surprise at being able to interact with him off the clock.  

We chatted, I laughed; I wondered what he was up to on the weekend, he told me had to work.

 “Well, nice seeing you.”

He began to wander off. Two women came up behind him, and greeted him with giggles. Ah, man.  I shook my head to myself, wondering what I’d been thinking. Did I really believe I was unique, the only one to detain him in conversation?  The only one he said hello to, smiled at?  Did he think all women were crazy, the way they reacted to him? 

One of the women leaned over and started to rub his back.  Hey now, wait a minute…how does she get the right to cross that line?  After a few more minutes, I snuck another peek at the situation, and he had his arms on her waist.  His lips on her mouth.  Her head in his armpit.  Lucky girl.  I saw that she was his unique one.  I chuckled to myself, after all the buildup, and actually felt a sense of relief that I could now go about my life and not give another thought to how I should sound when I said hello.

The next time I ran into him, I smiled and chatted and went on my way.  No real lingering, no concerted attempt to appear one way or another.  I saw him at work each and every time, and didn’t loiter but let him do his job without my conversational attempts to engage him. 

 A few weeks went by before I saw him again.

 “Hey, Jamie, how are you?”

 “Hey, what’s up? I’m good.  Kind of too busy, though. Town is nuts right now, making  me kind of cranky!” 

“You’re cranky, eh? Yeah…you’ve seemed kind of stand-offish the last few times I’ve seen you.” 

“Really! Huh. Well, I haven’t noticed, I guess.  I’m sorry!  You’re just always working when I see you, so I don’t want to bother you.”  

What I really wanted to say was, ‘well, since I saw you smooching your girlfriend when I was trying to work out, and watched her nestle in the crook of your armpit, I kind of decided not to put all this energy your way, capeesh?’

Funny that he had interpreted that as stand-offish.  Could he be totally unaware that I’d had this soft spot for him, and didn’t want to open myself up since he was in smoochy-smoochyville?

So I jokingly become extra-friendly, and asked him about his job, his snowboarding, nice to see you, have a good workout, smile, laugh, OK see you soon!

I turned to go, but he said something to prolong the conversation. Wow.  Just when you think you know what someone’s thinking, when you make an assumption about how they feel.   You don’t really ever know, do you?  Communication is an exercise, and you need to stretch a lot.

 I ended up working out on the machine next to him.  I was about to put on my headphones, but he started up another conversation. 

James Brown’s passing came up.  I told him I was never a big James Brown fan. Not really into the screeching and the obvious dancey-type sounds.

“Wow, you have no soul,” he replied. 

I laughed.

“Are you into Sinead O’Connor, or something?”

 I laughed harder, and told him how I bought her album in college only to return it 40 minutes later, declaring it the most depressing thing I’d ever heard.  I told him I was more of an Otis Redding type of girl. 

“Whatever, Sinead”.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. The banter continued.  I asked him if he was working all week, and he said yes; but he had one day off coming up.

“Oooh, one day off.  Alright!” 

More Ha Ha.  Or so I thought.  I’d see him at both jobs, whenever I saw him, and it was a busy week for both jobs.

 “So you probably work doubles, right ?”  I wiped some sweat from my forehead and glanced over at him. 

He stopped smiling, and just looked at me.  I paused, then grinned, a little nervously, for his mood appeared to have changed abruptly. 

I thought, maybe he thinks I’m a stalker?!  Since I just divined that he works doubles? Yikes.  One minute ago, we were talking, sharing a moment -even though he told me I had no soul-  and now he was just shaking his head at me.

 “Did I say something?  Or not say something?” I inquired, to cover my bases. 

“You just really seem on edge,” he said to me, smile-lessly.

Huh? What?  Umm…OK…

He got off his machine, without a word, and walked away to stretch.  I excused myself from my elliptical about 5 minutes later, not wanting to appear to jump off just because he was no longer there, but flustered and quite baffled by what had just transpired.

“Hey, did I say something to offend you? I honestly don’t understand what just happened.”    

“You should really check yourself, Jamie.  You’re really condescending.  You’re actually one of the more condescending people I’ve met since I’ve been here.”

Whoa.  Are there hidden cameras somewhere?  This was getting really unsettling.

I started to speak, a look of incredulity on my face. 

“I honestly have no idea what I said to offend you, but please accept my apology.”

“Why?  you’re not sorry, you’re still smiling.” 

“Look, is this because I said you work a lot?  That you’re working a lot this weekend?  That I see you at work?"  I continued my guessing game, because i was no closer to understanding.  "Did that somehow offend you?  I don’t know what I’ve done, but again, in all sincerity,if I’ve offended you in someway, I apologize.  That’s all I can do, you know?”

“Whatever.  I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. Doesn’t matter.  I mean, I don’t mind saying hi every now and then, chit chatting, but you know how some people say things and it’s just empty? 

“Well, actually,” I replied, ”I’ve always thought you’re really interesting, and thought it would be nice to talk to you outside of work, but that hasn’t happened, so…”

“You’re really judgemental, you know?  Yeah, I work a lot.  I work a lot and I want to spend what spare time I have with people who add to my energy, not take away from it.  Like right now, I’d rather be here stretching than having this conversation.”

I suddenly realized this was a bizarrely dead-end interaction, leaving me wondering why and how this had gone so horribly wrong.  This was how wars were started. Why can’t we all get along?  Parents, JUST don’t understand.

Suffice it to say, he’d given me a good dose of crush-be-gone.  Condescending and judgmental? 

My first thought was to wrack my brain and see if anything I’d said could be misinterpreted.  From our first encounter, I’d asked questions and taken interest and time in finding out more about him.  Did my sense of humor come off as something other than what I meant it be?  Perhaps.  Did he think I was wealthy and didn’t work?  Now that would be the height of misunderstanding.  Did he not realize that I’d had a crush on him since day 1 and since I always saw him at work that seemed to be a safe topic when I would happily look for any topic that would keep us engaged in conversation?  How could I be so misunderstood?  Should I be glad that he thought I was stand-offish and condescending, because that meant he had no idea I had a crush on him and therefore I never appeared to be the giggly schoolgirl that I felt to be?

While checking with friends to be sure that I wasn’t condescending, or judgmental, they confirmed that I had indeed had a brush with the twilight zone and decreed him poisonous, presumptuous, a fucktard - the list of offended parties and their comments goes on and on.  But the real question remained:  why did I care what someone who so clearly doesn’t know me, and who so clearly closed the door on communication and further understanding, think about me?  Why did I care what he thought?

I’m still not sure.  But what I think about myself has to be more important, in the long run, than anyone else’s assumptions or opinions about me.  After all these years, I think that’s what my big brother was trying to tell me.  

 

 

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