“This Reminded Me of You”

I’ve been reveling in this phrase as of late. It started with an old college friend hitting me up rather randomly. We took a lot of classes together freshman year, and I’d often find myself texting him when bored because our dorms were right next to each other, and frankly, because in college, you didn’t need to have an excuse beyond wanting company to waltz into someone’s abode and make yourself at home. In this way, we’d often hang out in his room chatting about nothing and everything, sometimes doing homework quietly, other times, showing each other songs we liked. The best types of hangouts.

I recently realized — only after taking the 16-personalities test — that my timid introverted teenage self has, since high school, flowered into an extrovert who shamelessly approaches anyone that seems cool or just enjoyable to hang out with. Perhaps because I could never find the socially fulfilling and emotionally safe relationships I needed in my family, I’ve become a fervent initiator and sustainer of friendships. When I enjoy spending time with someone and they reciprocate, I pester them until we’re friends or I get the hint to back off from enough curt and/or delayed responses. After college, most of my friends spread out to various parts of the country, but I make an effort to maintain our connections though book clubs, exchanging writing, and making annual visits, as nothing beats enjoying each other’s in-person presence.

One of the artists my college friend and I both loved was flor, our favorite song being ‘back again.’ I rarely listen to the same song for over a month or two, but flor’s songs were a part of my freshman year mantra, and I still don’t find myself skipping them if I forget to turn off shuffle on my Spotify liked songs. Something about the simple synthesizer base and drumbeat, flor’s soft, smiling voice, and the elating bridge always puts me at ease, lifting my mood. 

As it happens, COVID hit freshman year, my friend and I drifted apart, and now we occasionally catch up once or twice a year if we’re in the same city. Similar to most of my friendships, I’ve been the historically proactive one, so I was surprised when he texted me one day simply to tell me about how he recently listened to flor’s new album and was reminded of me, so he’d thought he’d share.

It was such a simple gesture, but I was touched.

As we grow up and start interfacing with the world without our parents’ surveillance, we begin to realize that we are autonomous beings that can make lasting marks on our surroundings. The toothpaste we consumed doesn’t regenerate from the same tube; the favorite mug we dropped and shattered cannot be glued back together; the clay we pressed our thumbs into has now been imprinted with our unique fingerprints. However, as depressed, anxiety-ridden adolescents barely able to get a handle of our own issues with self-image and sacrificing sleep to socialize or keep up with extracurriculars and GPAs, it becomes easy to feel like we’re powerless against making so much as a dent in improving societal issues such as institutional discrimination and climate change, and slowly, for me this also crept into a general feeling of insignificance in the eyes of others.

Interestingly and perhaps out of a self-defense mechanism against being deterred by self-consciousness, I frequently introspect about the effect others have on me, but rarely the other way around. Most of the time, I don’t think I make first impressions beyond “oh right, she’s the girl from HUNGARY.” I simply try my best to be a good human because despite all my parents taught me about how cruel and self-interested everyone is, I believe kindness, curiosity, and being considerate of those around me can go a long way. 

Looking back, I think I’ve taken these potentially meritable habits a bit too far, resulting in a weird combination of passivity and reactivity, letting stronger personalities dominate interactions and simultaneously checking out when they don’t behave to my liking. Thus, I fell into a kind of ego-death, attuning myself to others while reserving true thoughts to myself to be more agreeable and pursuing interests in discrete solitude after being discouraged by too much indifference to my sources of excitement. When someone upset or didn’t provide me the kind of support I needed, I never thought to pinpoint anything more concrete than a feeling of lack, so the automatic solution was to expect and interface less, rather than direct and express more.

To touch someone’s soul with yours: that’s what it means to be human. 

I’ve always admired people who could infect others with their radiant smile or passion for a cause, but the fact that I myself have the ability to influence others and mold my relationships is new. It started out with a simple text from an old friend, but looking around, I’ve also begun to notice how, for example, my interest in rock climbing got several friends into sport, or, how sudden passion for open water swimming last summer inspired a friend to take it up too, and several others to start swimming in the first place. In this way, I’ve learned that influencing is less about pushing opinions onto others, and more about inspiring through authentic pursuits and passions, about ‘doing my thing’, if people show interest, inviting them in. Though I hold onto my beliefs about keeping it cool in many contexts and approaching one another with radical curiosity and kindness, I’m learning to be less passive when I see that I’m regularly having the same one-sided interactions with the same people. 

I used to think that being strong means reining in emotions for a single-minded pursuit of ambitions and immediately disposing of anything negative or distracting. Though this is a useful skill, I now also see the tremendous courage and hard work that goes into being able to pause and recognize subconscious triggers, and, crucially, to communicate them to people I regularly interface with, whether by choice or not. 

To touch someone’s soul with yours: that’s what it means to be human. As much as societal standards and expectations mold our beliefs, we all have the capacity to treat each other with kindness and curiosity while remaining authentic. So this is a call to share more as we pursue what we love, to pull rather than push others in, to ask for what we want when our needs aren’t met. And, when we hear a song or read a line that reminds us of someone, a call to tell them about it. You might be surprised how such a simple gesture of expression can make someone's day.