5
"You, Director, how do you deal with enemies?" asked Youth.
"First tell me how you deal with them."
"I stay away."
"So you don't really deal with them."
"No, I guess I don't."
"The time when you're most anxious, when you don't hear back from someone, you've said you assume the worst - is that worst that you've made an enemy?
"Yes."
"And you just let things go, never really knowing if there is a friend, or an enemy, or something in-between out there." Director waited for a response but Youth said nothing. "Wouldn't it be better to follow up and see if you can find out what the truth is?"
"I guess."
Director studied Youth for several moments. "But you're not going to, are you?"
"If they don't want to talk to me, I don't want to talk to them."
"But is that true, or is it bravado? Be honest now, Youth. Do you still want to talk to them even though it seems they don't want to talk to you?"
Youth exhaled slowly. "Yes."
"We may have found another root of your anxiety. You may be afraid that you want to talk to people more than they want to talk to you. What do you think?"
"I think I'm uncomfortable being dissected like this."
"Shall we stop?"
"No."
"So what you really want, ideally, is to find people who want to talk to you as much as you want to talk to them."
"But who doesn't want that?"
"Oh, most everyone - to be sure. But you are different."
"How?"
"You have a lot of interesting things to say."
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Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com
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