Imposition

Friendship is an imposition, a delicate yet solid one. Have we become too polite and always fearing to be too imposing on others that we have become an isolating society at large, as a result?

I attended a wake of a dear friend whose demise came too early. I was really heartened by how all the friends came together to help support the family so quickly. A kind of imposition that took us out of all our initial plans, and that we allowed upon ourselves, because of how precious said friend was to all of us. It reminded me of JY’s funeral back in 2015 as well. All her Eusoff Hall buddies came together to help out and fulfill duties and gaps in logistics during the duration of the wake. It was touching as hell.

Another friend texted over the weekend to ask he could call to speak with me when I had time. That got me thinking of how there was a time when we would just pick up the land line phone and called anyone we desired at a particular time when they popped into our heads, or when we just felt like talking to them. It was a kind of imposition that came from an unwritten agreement between 2 people who share an emotional connection. You knew you could always count on your friend picking up the call as because it was unsaid that we all knew to do it within reasonable grounds and not let it spiral to incessant calls. Being able to have that trust in the other person picking up the phone and engaging you, gave everyone a greater sense of connectedness and to not feel so alone or lonely.

In this day and age where WhatsApp/Telegram texts reign, we seem to have lost the art of random phone calls and became too careful with friendships, treating one another as fragile Ming vases that would shatter upon imposition. We are constantly asking others first if we could call them, even scheduling phone calls into our super boxed up world of (already too many) planned schedules that run too far into the future most times. The predictability of our planned schedules also seem like another source of isolation in a way, as it robs us of serendipity and randomness of life.

I understand the need to be polite and ask first, not wanting to disrupt someone else’s precious schedule. But have we also become oversensitive in fearing imposition, that we end up unwittingly isolating our friends in the process?

There is also that fine line of being pesky and not giving the other party space, which may seem like human nature to know when to quit, but not always the case. I remember having attended a panel discussion on mental health awareness the year before, and one of the panelists urged us to check in on our friends who are struggling with mental health. So I posed the question of how much should we push if they are not responding to us? How do we know whether they are feeling cared for or intruded upon if we keep checking in without responses in return? I liked the response (which probably also revealed to me how low on EQ I was without being able to have thought of that already then). Don’t always check in and ask after them the same way, find different ways of reaching out, like offering to bring some leftover brownies you’ve baked, over to them. Or just sharing with them about something light about yourself, building it up to more if that evokes responses. It’s kinda like you don’t keep using “wanna hang out?” as your only pick up line on a dating app, just as you wouldn’t just keep asking a friend “how’s it going?” only.

If you have even just one friend you can call on a whim to talk about anything and everything at all today, I am super glad for you that you are that lucky. If not, maybe it’s not that wrong to try to impose something on a friend today? An imposition of an unplanned offer to help with something, to reach out to check in, even to impose asking for help (within reasonable boundaries). I hope the good old fashioned phone calls can maybe help save lives in this day and age, in the grander scheme of things. The warm comfort of a real time familiar voice over the phone with emotions that you can read through the energy of the voice. No amount of text messages or emojis can express or replace that warmth ever, and who knows, maybe pure and simple phone calls are actually the answer to reducing the suicide cases in society today.

Some examples of friendship impositions:

1. Imposing your own favourite ice cream flavour when gifting a friend for the first time (of course then you learn to gift them their favourite flavours after that).
2. Imposing help for funeral arrangements for a friend, stepping up to try and help relief the family of the financial, logistical and administrative strain that comes with funeral proceedings.
3. Imposing an offer to help with chores or duties based on your observations of the friend’s lifestyle and responsibilities, or whatever else is observable but not said.
4. Imposing a phone call on friend to either share a joke and force them to take a break, or bringing some random cheer and surprise into their lives (hopefully) with your unexpected voice. Or even to ask for help with something, without being manipulative but based purely out of an ability to lean on friends and help lighten a load.
5. Imposing an ask to meet up (tread carefully with this one, can possibly only come with some strong emotional bank account credits already built up over time between the 2 of you.)
6. Imposing a well thought through and empathetic question that shows a deep knowledge of and interest in your friend’s life (this one definitely takes skill and a lot of training in self and others awareness first, I am still working on it myself).

In the same breath though, the passing of this dear friend has also challenged my thinking about death. I am probably going to share an unpopular opinion here, but it is based on my experience.

I think some people carry a certain darkness in them that is overwhelming on a very very deep level, when shared. With that darkness, a bravery and intent on ending life sometimes also comes with it. They don’t need or seek saving, they already know that death is a path to peace for them and are bent on getting there, taking great pains and trouble to plan towards it without alerting surrounding friends. It started to make me wonder if death in itself is actually not a bad thing after all. We talk about reaching out early and helping to prevent people from taking their own lives, but what if there is no way to prevent it in the first place. What if some people are hardwired to have such courage in them, and the rest of us are just too afraid of taking life in our own hands this way? That they were actually the ones who got it all figured out and didn’t need what we see as help? I don’t know if I have fully bought into this perspective, but I think it is important to acknowledge the possibility of this alternative perspective.