Najois

” Did you enjoy Brussels?”.
I asked this question this morning to a person from Sicily, living in Portugal.

He answered: ” Yes, but I find people to be cold with their emotions over here in the North of Europe.”

To which I replied:
” This is because in the South of Europe, or the world, a certain set of behaviors are associated with warmth and affection, which are not the same cultural associations that are made here. So it is not that they lack warmth or affection, people are just educated in social and cultural norms in a different way depending on the cultural and society they were educated in.”

He smiled, and I apologised for being so talkative on a Sunday morning.

I greeted him, and resumed my research on personality disorders which I had started to investigate the previous night.

It started to dawn on me that people with personality and development disorders actually shouldn’t be shunned out of society, but actually integrated, as they are compasses to show us about behaviors we classify as’normal’.

In order to be socially acceptable, there are certain facial expressions, words, behaviors that greatly help to not trigger other people or make them exclude you.

As a child, and even today quite frankly, I have always found it difficult to make friends. It became clear to me when, at 8, I moved from Paris to Belgium, and was extremely distressed about the unfamiliar environment. I saw how the other children seemed just fine with interacting, while for me, it became a constant stress.

I would always say something that made people uncomfortable, point out my observations, which would not always be taken with enthusiasm. Not that my observations were wrong. But the delivery and context was. I asked questions about topics that were not to be asked, but then didn’t understand why it would have to be a problem, sine I was being sincere and trying to help most of the times. Or was truly interested in interacting with others.

The only ‘lucky’ part for me was my good grades at school and diligence, as well as my ‘different’ physical appearance. This, despite the odds, attracted the good graces and interest of people, which helped me nevertheless to attract people to want to interact with me.

Today I am still struggling to express myself in a way that is taking the sensitivities and cultural and social context of people into consideration. I ask many questions, so I would know how to not come across as intimidating, threatening or just rude. But it is not easy. So many other factors come into play, like people’s family background, their life experiences, etc.

Being socially acceptable is not only a struggle for the ‘different’, it’s just that when you are different, you do not necessarily understand why and how, and have to make a conscious and constant effort, in order not to be totally excluded, misunderstood or ostracized. Plus it also helps to not place actions that are out of a certain legal norm, as you learn about why certain actions are deemed toxic to the community.

I believe this understanding can be really helpful to not judge people’s actions before letting them explain, or at least reflect on the reasons why they act a certain way. And also taking more responsibility in understanding ourselves why we take so many things for granted. Because many ‘wrong’ be behaviors could be prevented if we could reflect on why they are ‘right’.