This is true, especially that quiet distance that can exist beneath perfectly correct behavior.
But I wonder if part of what we’re calling indifference is also a kind of limit.
Not everyone is always able to be present in the way we imagine. Sometimes politeness is not a performance of absence, but a minimal form of care... what someone can offer without overstepping, or without knowing how to go further. And maybe that’s where it becomes difficult to read, because from the outside, indifference and restraint can look almost identical.
The person who doesn’t stay long enough to hear your answer might not be avoiding you. They might be carrying something that doesn’t allow them to remain.
Or they might simply not know how.
That doesn’t make the loneliness less real. If anything, it complicates it, because then it’s not just that people don’t care.
It’s that care doesn’t always know how to appear...
Yes, care doesn’t always know how to show up. But most people don’t even try to learn. They hide behind ‘I don’t know how’ as if that’s a permanent condition. At some point, not knowing becomes a choice. And that’s where politeness stops being minimal care and starts being a soft lie.
This is true, especially that quiet distance that can exist beneath perfectly correct behavior.
But I wonder if part of what we’re calling indifference is also a kind of limit.
Not everyone is always able to be present in the way we imagine. Sometimes politeness is not a performance of absence, but a minimal form of care... what someone can offer without overstepping, or without knowing how to go further. And maybe that’s where it becomes difficult to read, because from the outside, indifference and restraint can look almost identical.
The person who doesn’t stay long enough to hear your answer might not be avoiding you. They might be carrying something that doesn’t allow them to remain.
Or they might simply not know how.
That doesn’t make the loneliness less real. If anything, it complicates it, because then it’s not just that people don’t care.
It’s that care doesn’t always know how to appear...
Yes, care doesn’t always know how to show up. But most people don’t even try to learn. They hide behind ‘I don’t know how’ as if that’s a permanent condition. At some point, not knowing becomes a choice. And that’s where politeness stops being minimal care and starts being a soft lie.
Yes, unfortunately.