The Context of Relationship

Greetings from the deep end!

I am a relatively socially inept person who never really grew up and has never really had that many friends. It is only now (at the age of 26) that I have become aware of a few social situations. I have never been the life of the party, I didn't get along too well with my college roommates, and God only knows why Pam was interested in me as I was certainly no charmer. All of that is to qualify my latest observation of the social aspects to modern humanity as being new to me.


Recently I have noticed an annoying little social quirk that I am going to call the "Contextual Relationship". It works like this; in a work setting two people get to know each other and have a certain relationship that is built over time and that both people are relatively comfortable with. They laugh and joke and share personal stories and anecdotes, they have inside jokes and a good feeling of what they can and can't say to the other person without causing discomfort or offence. Now, if we are to observe the same two people when they accidentally run into each other at the grocery store, we find that they are uncomfortable, don't have much to say and what they do say is minimal at best and awkward at worst. Some may even classify the meeting as shy, like the 7^th grade dance, boys on one side of the room and girls on the other. This is the contextual relationship, one that is based on and only works in a certain setting. I have even noticed this in myself to the degree that if I know a person from church, I may not even recognize them at the store.


Now, looking back, I can also relate this observation to my childhood. Specifically, remembering having friends at school and being invited to their homes for the first time. It was quite nerve racking as I recall. Not sure what would be expected of me, not sure how their family would react to me. Perhaps this is only a personal problem. Perhaps I am one of only a few who suffers from contextual relationships; whose friendships are bound by a specific set of walls or boundaries. Regardless, I don't like it. I wish to have the same relationship with a person regardless of our surroundings. I would like to be as comfortable with a person in church as I am at work or at the store. I believe that this is a completely irrational occurrence, and that I should do whatever I can to combat it.


Why then, does this contextual relationship anomaly occur? I don't have an answer today. I had hoped that by writing about the situation I would be able to organize my thoughts enough to find the answer, as I often do. However, my brain has failed me. If it continues this behavior I may have to poke it with a Q-Tip. Oops, I take that back, my brain got scared and chose to comply rather than face the Q-Tip consequence. I have thought of a possible cause for the disease, masks. Often one speaks of or hears of the masks that we all as humans wear. We wear our work mask and our church mask and our family or school mask each so that we can be the person we perceive that we need to be for the group of people that are around us. Ah, it all comes together now. The two who are work friends wear their work mask that is comfortable in the situation they find themselves in at work. Then, when they run into each other at the store, they aren't wearing their work mask; they are either wearing their family mask or their store mask or no mask at all. Being caught with the wrong mask on can be quite discomforting, but not more than being caught with no mask at all. Nudity in public is one of humanities greatest fears.


So then, the atrocity that is the contextual relationship boils down to one main cause, fear. If we were all to be able to become ourselves without fear of being disliked or rejected or of offending others, the contextual relationship would cease to be. Each person would have no reason to feel uncomfortable wearing no mask because they would always be wearing no mask. Adam and Eve never felt embarrassed that they had no coverings because they never had any coverings. I believe that it may be a very uncomfortable thing to do, and I am not sure how to go about getting it done, but I believe that if we can all find a way to take off all of our masks and learn to be ourselves all of the time, we can beat contextual relationships. Either that or we will make a pill for it. CONRELATIA, for your contextual relationship disorder, side effects include but are not limited to…