Okay, I decided that I'd post the "personal reflection paper" from my "Psychology of Interpersonal Relationships" class that I took last semester. I said I'd write down some of my observations from that class in here because most were relevant toward the subjects covered in my blog/online diary - namely, how fucking hard it is to have a satisfying relationship with people. We were each required to keep a journal in which we documented "interpersonal happenings", or moments that provided us insight into the way we communicate and relate to each other, so that's the source of many of the examples referenced in here. Hope you at least find this interesting. I've tried to explain a few of these stories and left some notes in square brackets. Although the degree of insight isn't exactly tremendous, I sort of like the way it turned out just because of the way it sounds. It was simultaneously academic and personal, so I was able to maintain my own typical style of writing (which you are probably familiar with if you've read anything else on this blog). It was good enough for an A- (which is the grade I'm positive they gave to everybody in the class, although the minus might also refer to the negativity that practically drips off of this paper, as this was written toward the worst part of my depression {which is currently being treated, I'll let you know how it goes if/when I stop being depressed}).
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Although much of the material I’ve discussed in my journals revolves around issues in communicating effectively, I believe that discussing that sort of topic at length is neither productive nor insightful. This has made the subject of what to discuss for a personal reflection paper a serious challenge. There isn’t an aspect of my interpersonal relationships that I believe have improved at all over the course of the semester despite learning all that I have about how to make them work. Much of the blame for this can be placed squarely on my shoulders. Over the course of the semester I’ve withdrawn from many communications that would have allowed me to really demonstrate what I know about establishing supportive and beneficial relationships. The truth is that I’m not really in any sort of condition to introspect, since everything I’ve done outside this class involves growing detached from people with whom I already had strong interpersonal relationships and not becoming particularly close with anyone, with the possible exception of [name of friend] in this class. However, one of the connections I made in a previous collection of articles about openness in interpersonal relationships proves to be a promising avenue for discussion and self-improvement. Neglecting the details of what I have said about openness in the context of other, more precise areas of study in interpersonal relationships, openness is good. I see it as the source of fulfillment that one receives from one’s interpersonal relationships, which arguably makes it the key to experiencing a satisfying relationship (in addition to being empirically demonstrated to be the key to personal growth and relationship strengthening). Thus, it is one of the most important things for a relationship to possess. However, it cannot exist as part of a pair. In order for a relationship to truly be “open”, both partners must be willing to present themselves honestly and completely to each other. This seemingly simple requirement for achieving openness in a relationship is unfortunately very difficult to meet. It is this difficulty that has motivated me to reflect mainly on the topic of openness in interpersonal relationships.
Openness in a relationship is the degree to which partners are willing to communicate honestly with each other. It is the comparative lack of pretenses that define everyday communications. It is, for the most part, directly related to the level of intimacy (emotional or physical) between people. It is defined by true understanding of oneself and one’s partner. If it is still difficult to grasp the concept of openness defined on its own terms, it is because it seems to be seen so rarely. Most relationships are built on some degree of pretense that prevents that relationship from achieving true openness. The relationship between a loving parent and child, for example, though undeniably intimate, is actually one of the less open relationships* (as I am defining them here) that the child especially is likely to remember in his life. Most parent-child relationships preclude the possibility (or, at best, willingness) to discuss topics that are often a large part of the child’s life but are considered “inappropriate”, such as sexual activities, drug/alcohol use, etc. In fact, many children even in healthy, supportive home environments can’t be bothered to share with their parents the most basic parts of their lives, such as, “What did you do today?” or, “What are you learning about in school?” The parent-child relationship often revolves around the child ensuring that the parent holds him in high regard, which almost always means refraining from sharing with their parent a certain aspect of their lives and ensuring that they are seen as a model child, or at least a child who doesn’t need a parent’s intervention in order to be successful in his life. Most interpersonal relationships operate on some level of pretense rather than total openness. Even strong romantic relationships begin with a mutual attempt between partners to impress each other with their strong qualities rather than with their complete self-portraits, character flaws included.
A more complete understanding of the concept of openness can be provided by examining it from a strictly personal standpoint, free of the context of one’s interpersonal relationships. Openness in a relationship is mostly dependent on both partners being willing to present themselves to others as they are, free of as much pretense as possible. The willingness to be open is not so much a conscious choice as it is an aspect of one’s personality. The reason we surround ourselves with pretenses is to mask our insecurities, which are as much a part of our personalities as anything else. Based on this logic, I would conclude that our willingness to be open with others is generally inversely proportional to our degree of insecurity.
For a while, I considered myself one of the most open people that I know because I do very little to mask the parts of my personality that other people seem to care about. I quite naturally speak at the speed of thought, speak my thoughts even they don’t really make sense, take (mostly) genuine interest in the lives of others, think in a goal-oriented fashion despite working as a perfectionist, etc. Of these traits I am fairly proud. I am willing to share these with other people because it not only allows others to think of me positively, but it allows me to think of myself positively. It seems that by sharing the parts of a man that reflect positively upon him, he comes to be defined by both himself and his interpersonal relationships in those terms alone. In this way, refraining from being completely open with others is a somewhat effective way of seeking escape from one’s insecurities. Therefore, I am not actually as open as I thought I was. My inability to comfort, my inferiority complex, and my short temper are as much a part of me as the positive qualities I listed above. Choosing to ignore them at the expense of being able to be truly open with myself and with others is a choice that I may not have made consciously but one that nonetheless hinders my ability to actively participate in an open relationship.
I believe that our generation is far more closed-off and unwilling to be open in our relationships than previous generations for this reason. There is so much pressure for children to be absolutely perfect in every way these days – academically, socially, etc. – that children’s perceptions of their own shortcomings are exacerbated and develop into a great deal more insecurity than other generations. If the degree to which one is willing to be open in one’s interpersonal relationships is inversely proportional to one’s degree of insecurity, this increased responsibility toward being the perfect child is likely the cause of this closed-off behavior in which children define themselves far more strongly by pretenses of perfection rather than their true selves.
Connecting back to openness on the larger scale of entire relationships, I believe that lack of openness is responsible for much of the generally negative interactions I experienced and documented in my journal. Although I could honestly connect each entry in some way to the concept of openness, I will limit myself to a few examples of the damage that can be caused by the lack of openness in interpersonal relationships. The most obvious example that comes to mind is Entry #12, regarding my experiences with suicide. [Short version of the story: witnessed the entire immediate aftermath of the kid across the hall from me attempting to kill himself. He lived, thankfully.] Regarding my unfortunate experience after class, I believe I can somewhat accurately attribute the misery that my fellow resident was obviously experiencing to an extreme lack of openness in his interpersonal relationships. The reason “nobody saw it coming” was likely because there was no one who would have seen it coming. The only person who had previously ever known some of the darker aspects of this young man’s personality was himself. He had done such a great job at concealing a complete, non-ideal version of himself that he had lost the ability to form relationships in which true openness could ever be achieved. Thus, nobody could know that the real man was actually suffering deeply. To be in a situation where one fully recognizes his insecurities but cannot do anything to overcome them or share them with others in a truly open relationship is one of the greatest tortures I can imagine. It is for this reason that I continue to see the short story read in class (described in that same entry) as a trite reflection of the author’s wishful thinking and/or excessive idealism. [Seriously, this was one of the dumbest things ever - we were asked to analyze the story of "Kyle" which was a fucking chain e-mail from the early '00s if I remember right. This story is some of the biggest bullshit I've ever read in my life.] There is absolutely no way that one can hide suicidal urges that were very nearly acted upon from others and find a relationship that is open enough to completely change his outlook on life. The only way this could occur is if he were ignorant enough to completely forget about his insecurities and fully embrace the pretense he had built for himself in one instant as a “cool guy”.
I also feel as if many of the issues involving hostile or ineffective communications are a direct result of the lack of openness with the people with whom I was trying to communicate. It should be both understandable and expected that my relationships with my group mates in my engineering class are mostly impersonal and detached. Although I feel as if this might be a bit of a stretch in terms of applying the concept of openness to the communication problems in my engineering group, it may be possible that the general defensiveness in our conversations may be a result of misunderstanding each other’s true selves. [Short version: one guy didn't know his shit even though he acted like he ran the group and that pissed the rest of us off.] Presented only with a few brief moments of small talk with my newer group, we were expected to get to work immediately with only a very limited knowledge of each other’s personalities. The member I described in one of my article responses (note: not in the journal) I now realize was actually relying on his self-confidence to mask his insecurity regarding his understanding of the material we were working with. This resulted in a notable lack of open communication in our group. Although the definition of open communication is somewhat different in a technical setting (openness refers more to ensuring that everyone understands what is going, what they should be doing, etc.) it is still the result of these insecurities that a lack of openness is established. The feigning of confidence results in both the member himself and group perceiving him as someone knowledgeable and useful. It is only when these insecurities are called to attention (i.e. when asked an especially complex question) that one becomes aware of one’s insecurities.
Discussing this topic has led me to contemplate some of my relationships that are open rather than defined negatively by their inherent lack of openness. Unfortunately, there weren’t any real instances of interpersonal openness to document this entire semester. The closest instance I can think of was when I met my friend (who I hadn’t seen for eight months) for coffee when I was staying at home over spring break. I honestly do not know why I chose to document visiting my friend’s college instead of this date [unrelated story, but I visited my friend's college and discovered that their dorm was a tight community while at UM there was barely a support system at all], because what followed was one of the most memorable and engaging conversations of my life. As far as I can remember there was no aspect of our personal or interpersonal lives that wasn’t discussed freely and without pretense, and we both empathically understood of each other’s successes and woes. It is worth noting that my relationship with this person is some sort of helping relationship – our relationship has always been one of close friendship, but she had previously been both a role model and a teacher to me. Many of the articles we’ve read about the helping relationship directly address the idea that openness is an absolutely vital characteristic of an effective helping relationship. The fact that we were fairly open with each other before is likely why I was able to be helped by her in the past, and I also feel that I can attribute some degree of personal growth over the last few years of my life to this as well. However, the fact that we were not open with each other in the truly fulfilling sense of the word until this night tells me that true openness might be even harder to find than we think. If my experience with true openness in interpersonal relationships is limited only to brief, one-time experiences, how can I demonstrate that openness can define entire relationships rather than singular encounters with people? I can’t. The fact is that true, unabashed, lasting openness is very hard to find between two people. The closest example I can imagine is the openness between two lovers, but I can’t back up that context with any recent personal experience.
At the beginning of this semester I was of the conviction that these moments of openness in relationships were something of a climax – this is the level of interpersonal connection that cannot be topped and relationships only weaken from this point on. I have experienced both examples of this belief and counterexamples as well. (I still believe I can safely have an open relationship with the woman in the previous paragraph, although not being in my hometown means I can’t know for sure.) I no longer believe it to be entirely true. The reason for this is because I believe I have defined openness too strongly. Referring exclusively to euphoric moments of intense interpersonal connection absolutely free of pretense would leave everyone under the belief that they were incapable of being in a truly open long-term relationship. A relationship can still be considered open to a large extent with both participants occupying a certain role (i.e. pretense) such as that of a therapist and a patient. While this is not what I would consider “true openness” because it is incomplete, there is still huge potential to foster personal growth in the patient, which is what the openness of therapeutic relationships exists to do. It must still be asserted, however, that the degree of fulfillment that one receives from being involved in an open relationship really depends on the degree to which both partners are willing to be open with each other. One can be completely open to others – strip their very soul bare to another – and if that is not reciprocated, it can’t be said that there is any openness at all in one’s interpersonal relationships.
The role of this openness in interpersonal relationships is simple. In addition to the fact that nearly every method for fostering personal growth and strengthening relationships depends on the ability of both partners to be open with each other, it provides the sense of satisfaction that motivates us to be involved in relationships in the first place. The study of interpersonal relationships revolves around finding ways in which to make interpersonal connections stronger and more mutually beneficial. This class did an admirable job of demonstrating many of the ways that one can accomplish this, and I feel that I’ve benefitted from it in that respect. I am most grateful that we at one point touched upon the topic of openness, because although openness isn’t a topic that is highly analyzed in the study of interpersonal relationships, it is one that is often considered a prerequisite to being able to even tolerate involvement in interpersonal relationships. It is an absolutely vital characteristic on both personal and interpersonal levels.
However, the difficulties I’ve outlined surrounding our ability to make these sorts of connections are a source of great deliberation for me. If my journals have demonstrated anything, it’s that I have not been able to successfully establish any relationships that possess a satisfactory degree of openness this semester. The reason for this is essentially due my own withdrawal from being open with people. Any doubts I had that human beings were even capable of dropping pretenses and being open with each other were greatly exacerbated and reflected in my own behaviors. At one point I tried to explain my concerns over my own withdrawal and resulting loneliness to a friend, but this person did not really reciprocate my willingness to be open, which is what I believe is responsible for determining my focus on openness as the only aspect of interpersonal relationships worth focusing on for a final reflection paper.
The reason why I have not been able to exit this state of withdrawal is because there isn’t much of a method for fostering a willingness to be open for oneself. Several of the articles involved outline methods by which to foster openness in a relationship, but that won’t occur unless one is willing to be open in the first place. A therapeutic setting, as is described at length, is obviously one in which both the therapist and the patient are both willing to be open. The same cannot be said for normal life. On top of the lack of willingness to be open in one’s relationships, no one particularly wants anyone else to be open with them unless they are comfortable with being open themselves. Openness is thus best created in newer relationships in which boundaries are not set and pretenses are not yet present.
The most important step in overcoming the fear of being open is overcoming insecurities. It is impossible to be open unless one drops the pretenses surrounding one’s interpersonal relationships or even surrounding how one views oneself. As these pretenses are a direct result of masking insecurities, eliminating insecurity eliminates pretense. Eliminating pretense fosters openness. I’m not going to explain how to overcome insecurities. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject of overcoming insecurity and still no one my age really knows how to do it at all. Despite this, I do believe that there is a way for everyone to adopt a willingness to be open as a part of their personalities. This is a process to which no method can be assigned, because overcoming one’s insecurities is invariably an intensely personal process. Once one overcomes one’s own insecurities, one is ready to move on to adopting the responsibility of encouraging others to be open – not only with oneself but with other people as well.
Although there are many angles from which I could have reflected upon my experiences in this class and their connections to my everyday life, openness is the most important. Without the ability or desire to be open in one’s interpersonal relationships one can derive no pleasure, no satisfaction, no personal growth, and no purpose. Thus, the fact that the interpersonal quality of openness and the personal quality of willingness to be open is so lacking scares me. It is in the area of openness that we have the most potential to feel fulfilled in our interpersonal relationships. This is the key to enriching our lives. We must all be taking steps to discontinue bearing the burden of masking our insecurities with pretenses and idealized versions of ourselves – we must simply be ourselves as we are.
