Anti-Mattering

Want to make someone feel good? Instead of telling them that you want to go somewhere or do something, tell them you want to go there or do that with them. If it’s not dirty – hell, even if it is— then you will have made their day. Because in the end, we really want to feel like we matter to someone.

Think about it. Fame, fortune and adventure are the traditional goals taught us through thousands of years of narrative. Once you get past survival, all of those can be reduced to a simple wish to matter. I’m trying to avoid using the late-last-century psychobabble here, because that vocabulary has become a joke. It trivializes what I think is a basic emotional need.

Okay, fine. I’ll say it. We want validation. (See my earlier post about being a parking whore, there’s got to be a joke in there somewhere.)

We don’t want to break down and spill our guts and then, only then, have someone remember an appointment for which they are late. That happened to me yesterday. It did not feel good. On top of my earlier distress, I was embarrassed and dismayed by my friend’s response. It was evidence that I don’t matter. To be fair, he really did just remember the appointment, and he really was late. That’s why we named my new punching bag after him. Still, even knowing that, the effect is the same.

The punch line is, when he got to the appointment, it turned out that it’s really next month. That doesn’t matter but it made me laugh.