Be pachinko, my friend

Here’s something I think about a lot:

Being seen.

It is absolutely, one hundred percent some unhealed part of myself that jumps up and down waving, “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!”

I did not say it is a likable trait.

I also hasten to clarify that this does not happen in public or group situations. I am not a performer, although I am reduced to performing in anything outside a one-on-one scenario. I attribute it to autism: I simply do not know how to be myself when there is more than another person present (OK, usually also when there is just one person present).

But when I am in situ with one person, my god, my deepest wish is that they see me.

Of course, the irony is that so few people do. Because being seen is so much more than being perceived. There is much to perceive about me on the outside, but these things are not who I really am. Who I am begs for this to be acknowledged, to not be reduced to all the aspects of me that are conveniently accessible. It’s the difference between admiring a lamp and seeing the bulb within; what makes me shine is what’s on the inside.

I know the difference because I’ve been seen, and I’ve known others who have seen and been seen. I’m perceived by many; but being seen is so much rarer. It is a singular experience, and one that we have no control over. I still don’t know the conditions that determine who can see whom, and why, and when; I just know that we can’t do anything to make it happen.

Recently, I’ve become friends with a couple—separately. I became friends with the two of them independently of one another, and I’ve yet to hang out with both of them together. I met him first; we sat next to each other in different places several days in a row, and the last time we looked up, grinned in recognition as though we were already friends, and then we were. Sometime later, I found myself sitting next to his girlfriend. I knew who she was immediately, like I was looking at his reflection; a perfect counterpart. “Of course,” I thought when I met her. Just as I’d recognised him immediately on the occasion when we finally looked at each other, she and I saw one other, too. “Aren’t you a friend of [boyfriend]’s?,” she asked, but I think what she was really asking was, “Don’t I know you?” and it seems, actually, that she does. Their mutual familiarity makes me believe they must have known each other at once when they first met; as if, perhaps, they were the same soul in another life. To me, this is the less surprising part; what is more remarkable is that they were ready for one another when they met.

I think we can meet so many people that feel familiar or inexplicably significant to us—in my experience, this more often happens when we are on our way somewhere, and not when we get to stay in that place with that person to find out exactly how they are significant to us. When this has happened to me, it has felt like meeting a stranger that I knew intimately —but on the platform of a train station before our respective trains arrived and we departed, reluctantly, in our different directions.

The last time it happened, I met him on two consecutive days. Although we exchanged words the first time, we did not “see” each other. The next day, when we were introduced by a mutual friend, neither of us remembered having met each other the night before. He said later that was the first time he “saw” me, but I still couldn’t have told you what he looked like, despite spending the afternoon with him. It wasn’t until several hours into sitting opposite each other later that night that I finally saw him—when that happened, there was a mutual “locking in” that took place. It was an intangible shift we both felt, a sliding of two separate parts that effortlessly clicked into place when they were ready and made the mechanics work. We revelled in our mutuality for the next twelve or so hours; “What is this?,” we asked in delighted amazement. Of course, I was on my way somewhere else; I left and, despite our sincerest intentions that we sustained for about two months, we never saw each other again.

What was it? I don’t know, and perhaps I’ll never find out; our paths converged only briefly before we continued on our separate ways. But it was something, the way that I know other things aren’t. Like someone I’ve been spending time with lately; we enjoy each other’s company enormously, but at arm’s length. Yesterday, we spoke about how it feels to really see someone. He told me about meeting his ex, whom he had known for a year before she one day seemed to appear revealed before him, totally unexpectedly. It was what I needed to hear; I’ve spent the past month wondering if this person could see me, but I finally understood that he did not. It was strangely reassuring—I knew that I couldn't do a thing about it.

When two people are ready to see each other, there’s a veil that falls away. It’s outside our control. I know there’s so much to see about me beyond what is superficially obvious, but I can’t ask to be seen any more than someone is able—or willing—to see me. I believe resistance can stop us from seeing something that is plainly there, but nothing that is meant for us evades us.

How many people do we actually see as they are—not through the lens of our own biases, our inadequacies, our expectations, our desires? We might have an idea of who we think someone is which is all we can see, or protect ourselves from a deeper sense of who they might be—and who that would require us to be. It probably has to be this way. Other people have to serve as obstacles for us to bounce up against to send us on our way in the giant pachinko game of life; without those barriers, wouldn’t we just… drop? What would we possibly learn about ourselves on the way?

This tendency I spoke of earlier, of wanting to be seen—for every ten times I’ve placed myself in front of someone hoping they might see me, there was one time someone saw me first. I’ve received enough relationships that arrived sweetly, effortlessly, and organically, to know that not everything I want is meant for me.

What is right for me does not resist me. This might sound faith-based, but the empirical evidence of my experiences tells me otherwise. I believe it to be true. It is a truth I do not like and have not yet made peace with.

My frustration is reserved almost entirely for romantic relationships where, to date, what was meant for me was meant only for a short time. I struggle to accept that this is my lot; it is an endless cycle of delight and disappointment that I try my hardest not to feel defeated by. It is exhausting. I resist the compulsion to make myself visible, which is more labour yet; I’ve quit the apps (social and dating) and try to trust what I believe in, instead.

Faith is a corrective to force. You know what else faith is? Invisible.

Can’t make this stuff up.

See ya,