Life, as we live it has many dimensions to it. While we live in the society and become a part of it by socializing, making friends, schools, colleges and universities, through our workplace friends and acquaintances, neighbors, the grocery shops we visit and every other place we visit becomes a part of our life.
Sometimes we develop a long-term relationship with people we have not met before while we remain strangers to our near and dear ones, whom we spend most of our time with. There are instances when a complete stranger, or an acquaintance come forward to help even before your family or extended family responds to your plea.
There will be instances when you will meet someone for the first time in your life, maybe from a different country or from across the globe and you start connecting as you both have known each other for ages. It’s so instinctive and you feel from within, that you can share your stories, anecdotes and problems you are facing, without being judged.
Isn’t it perplexing, that when we grow up in a family and with many cousins and everyone meets regularly during the holidays, share good moments and laugh and cry together, still do not know you completely. After all, it’s a family bond and you meet or interact with them on a regular basis, all through your growing years.
Even after you move out, chasing a hectic career and managing schedules and managing your own family or even if you are single, you do meet them during the holidays and other family occasions. I won’t say it’s the norm , but I have hear this from many of my friends that, “my family or anyone from my family does not understand me”, they are saddened by the fact that their family already forms opinions about them and makes judgmental comments like, “oh, we have known you since your birth, so we know you better”. Now we have all heard that statement and felt, “How I wish, my family understood me better”.
Some families are more closely bonded and are more instinctive and not looking at the gray areas of any relationship, they get along and understand each other better. They are there to help each other and make it a point to genuinely connect with every member.
The question that hovers in my mind is, “What makes people connect?” As I have mentioned, on one hand close knit families turn out to be complete strangers whereas, two complete strangers may be from across the globe, understand you much better and somehow predicts your mood. Suppose you are feeling down or maybe few things are troubling you for quite some time and all of a sudden you receive a phone call, message, an e-mail or even, that once a stranger and now your soulmate (if you may term it as that) comes and visits you.
I have known couples who have dated for a very long time and were very much in love and they knew that they will spend the rest of their lives together. Somehow, after they exchanged vows and after a couple of years, differences started creeping in and things were not so rosy; they decide to call it quit and end their relationship of so many years.
Well, when I tried speaking to them before they were to take the decision to separate, they both, could not give me a clear reply. How everything could become so unbearable and things go so wrong when they have known each other for so long?
Relationships throw so many questions at us. There are so many dimensions and layers that we so often do not have the time or patience to look at every layer and visit every aspect of each other’s feelings of any relationship.
We try to make the best of it, but we may have to work harder getting to know the person or our family members talk and communicate with them more and also devote more time.
A relationship has an unseen bond and thus we cannot gauge the gravity of the situation when strains and conflicts make this bond brittle, and finally they snap. Every relationship requires time, understanding, being non-judgmental and keeping the line of communication free at all times.
Amitav Chowdhury 