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From childhood on, as we grow our tastes mature, expand and develop. Foods you wouldn’t even taste as a child become your favorites in adulthood. So it is with people (except when it is not –- a story about that comes later in this post).
Since my mid-thirties, I have found myself reconnecting with former acquaintances and work colleagues. More than one or two has said to me, “I couldn’t stand you when we were younger,” or “I thought you were such a bitch, you’re actually nice” or something to that effect. (Who me -- bitchy? Never!)
I have also found myself connecting to, establishing relationships with and enjoying people who I totally didn’t “feel” when we were younger. One woman, a former judge in Boston, used to seem so standoffish/snobbish/siddity when I ran into her when we were younger. We have now gone walking several times. Turns out her role as a judge meant that she had to maintain a dignified distance, but underneath the robe and responsibility of her office, she was a mother, wife, reader and all-around nice woman. While not buddies, we are friends.
Another woman is fast becoming a friend. We used to work for the same social service organization that was founded and run by women who were affluent. I assumed because she was also affluent that she was “one of them,” and so I never paid her much attention. We reconnected recently when I attended a workshop that she presented. (I went to the workshop not knowing that she was the facilitator. I’ll be honest, I might not have gone if I had known.) She invited me to lunch to talk about a business idea and, lo and behold, we are working on a business together. In planning the business, we’ve discovered we have a lot in common, that we share an affinity for many of the same things and that we like each other. We missed each other totally when we were in proximity years ago. I guess it wasn’t time for a friendship or even collegiality then –- that work environment was a bit toxic. I’m glad that we were able to reconnect and align.
My husband also thought of me as unapproachable. He has told me that he’d tried to talk to me several times over the years when he ran into me at various functions around Boston but that I seemed “closed.” While I admit to putting a wall up in professional situations more often than not, I don’t remember him ever approaching me in a way that would have warranted more than the cursory response he says I gave him. Luckily, he tried, tried, tried again.
I'm certain that I’ve missed career and friendship opportunities along the way, because my shyness or rigid professional demeanor (in certain settings) or feelings of inferiority (especially around rich people) or annoyance (in overly politicized or poorly planned situations) caused me not to try to connect with people. I’ve also had times when my dance card was full and I just didn’t want to let anyone else close. Other times I can work a room like a champ and bridge all divides (see my post Pushing Through Shyness).
What I’ve enjoyed about this reconnecting or finally-connecting is that it has allowed me to know people whom I should have know but had missed totally.
I've grown to like another woman -- whom I didn’t like when we were younger -- because I’ve come to admire she is authentically herself. She’s so real and unapologetic for being who she is, liking what she likes, having what she has. She wasn’t name-dropping when we were younger or putting on airs. She was a person who made it a point to live outside the identity boxes that were planned for her. Some of us didn’t know what to think about a woman who lived so outside the box! As I’ve become “free-er,” I can finally see her without judgment.
The “except when it’s not” story I promised earlier:
My best friend and I were shopping. As usual, we were in separate parts of the store. I ran into a woman I’d taught a few years previously in a pre-employment program that I worked for. She was one of my favorite students, and we embraced each other excitedly. We were catching up when, suddenly, I saw her
