How to handle people willingly leaving your life
(Stories of a Stoic)
Early in Fall of 2017, I met a nursing student from a private university one city south of mine. Natalie (pseudonym) and I instantly became close and shared daily conversation, constant banter, and that special connection rarely found. I was in a hiatus from a long-term partner Alice (pseudonym), and I did enjoy my new friend as a change from my girlfriend. Whereas Alice was impersonal, Natalie was nurturing. Whereas conversations with Alice was usually centered on her, Natalie constantly centered talk on me. Every dynamic of our relationship spoke to joy of a blooming romance. Except we really never graduated beyond that stage. After my two-year relationship ceased, I didn’t wish to find myself in another one. Natalie would try to advance things whereas I tried to tame them to best preserve what we had. Various social dynamics writers emphasize how when a woman is attracted to a man, and a man doesn’t accept those advancements, the woman grows bitter towards him. As this was the case.
Natalie’s passion for health care and healing speaks to her altruism and compassion. She wasn’t, and isn’t, a bad person. But I continued to regard our relationship as it were, while things seemed to grow sour from her end. Her advancements became more obvious, and my elusiveness became more emphatic. This culminated into a series of painful conversations that robbed us of whatever vitality we had together. Subsequent conversations were forced, interactions were strained, and our relationship was a far cry from what had been. But after finding myself without as many friends around, and out of a genuine care for Natalie, I reached out to her this past day. We began talking, but after a delay in her response, I fell into a trance of prophecy. I felt I was able to see her reply before she had sent it. I felt the words in my head, I saw the message being typed and considered what my immediate reaction would be. I received that message near verbatim.
I was washing my hands in the bathroom before dinner when I read this message. Immediately, I felt a sensation of surrealness surge through my body. My feet felt frozen, and my body felt heavy. Staring in the mirror, I felt the heft of my face weigh downward. But after a few seconds (that felt like minutes), I typed that response. It wasn’t a censored, edited, nor revised version of what I wanted to say. Those were the words that my mind immediately manifested, because they reflected what I know.
The Stoic response to these kinds of losses should be how one responses to natural circumstance. Human-beings may be easily influenced. And with a basic understanding of psychology, or an advanced understanding of social dynamics, one can influence another’s decision of this kind. But one never should. Because beyond the moral consideration, we as people are shrouded in originality. And our beliefs, ideas, experiences, idiosyncrasies are analogous to a beautiful harmony playing beneath our skin. This harmony doesn’t speak to all, but those who it does speak to are commanded by it. And as long as we are “good people,” and through respect, kindness, and a basic humanity ensure that we promote the happiness and healthiness of those we interact with (or at the very least, we aren’t a detriment to them), those who care for us won’t leave. It isn’t a matter of decision, it’s a matter of nature. So when other’s do leave our lives, as long as we’re generally good people, we can understand that this does not reflect our social attractiveness nor our worth. It reflects our how they valued us. We didn’t speak to them. The harmony playing within us didn’t interact with theirs. They didn’t “hear it.” Or they did, but it wasn’t “for them.” Because what attracts them is naturally different, and that’s okay. Romantic value doesn’t predicate on a hierarchy of worth. It predicates on a hierarchy of compatibility and relative attractiveness. A key’s value isn’t worthless because it doesn’t unlock all doors. Nor is man for not meeting the desires of all potential partners.
We should accept these losses with pride because our goal should be to live the healthiest, happiest, and most honest lives as possible. And there’s an inherent dishonesty in keeping people around as friends and partners who do not value you as others do, because a tacit principle of holding people close is that they too hold us close. They see us for what we are and they value what we are. So if another person discards our relationship, thus clarifying what they see and how they feel about what they see, this serves as a natural process to cleanse our circles of those who we aren’t meant for. And thus, those not meant for us. This process enriches our circles by ensuring those in our orbit are ones who are meant to be there. Because they hear the music we play and they like it.