Three Is Company
On board bus number 33 yesterday, a trio of secondary school girls boarded the bus together. One girl chose the seat in front of me, and another plopped down beside her, leaving the third member of their little group to sit alone, in a two seater diagonally behind them.
I felt a little sorry for that girl who was left out from the other two girls' gossip session, but thought that was the consequence of forming a trio instead of a duo: someone's bound to get left out.
Then I was thinking, realizing: most of my life, I've never had - or managed to maintain - a one-on-one relationship with anybody; I've always gotten myself involved with groups of threes, since nursery school.
And, for me, that has never been a bad thing. (Of course, when I was a lot younger, I didn't like being left out. But the older I got, the less I minded - because that gave me time by myself.)
I wonder if this has anything to do with a phobia of intimacy. I've never been able to hang out one-on-one with any one person for a long stretch (possible exception being Pumpkin, but I'm gonna have to think that out a little more). It's never long before I start to back off, excusing myself from regular hanging out.
Being with two other people allows you to sit back and observe; there will never be a dearth of conversation and there will never be awkward lulls to sit through. Like that Sondheim number goes: "One's impossible, two is dreary / three is company, safe and cheery".
Safe - that's the magic word.
I think I really like being one of three; being one of two is just too ... tiring, stressful on the psyche.
(Sometimes, it seems pretty duh to me that Alvina was right: I need to sit myself down in a shrink's office to iron out the ever mounting issues (chronic sense of alienation, irrational need for security and safety, paradoxical fear of dependence and independence, etc., among various phobias) I keep discovering.
Sometimes, I really think I'll be much happier if I were mad ... if only I dared step off the precipice of sanity.
Anyway.)
On the bright side, hey, I'm prolly a perfect fit for a ménage à trois.
(Yay?)
I felt a little sorry for that girl who was left out from the other two girls' gossip session, but thought that was the consequence of forming a trio instead of a duo: someone's bound to get left out.
Then I was thinking, realizing: most of my life, I've never had - or managed to maintain - a one-on-one relationship with anybody; I've always gotten myself involved with groups of threes, since nursery school.
And, for me, that has never been a bad thing. (Of course, when I was a lot younger, I didn't like being left out. But the older I got, the less I minded - because that gave me time by myself.)
I wonder if this has anything to do with a phobia of intimacy. I've never been able to hang out one-on-one with any one person for a long stretch (possible exception being Pumpkin, but I'm gonna have to think that out a little more). It's never long before I start to back off, excusing myself from regular hanging out.
Being with two other people allows you to sit back and observe; there will never be a dearth of conversation and there will never be awkward lulls to sit through. Like that Sondheim number goes: "One's impossible, two is dreary / three is company, safe and cheery".
Safe - that's the magic word.
I think I really like being one of three; being one of two is just too ... tiring, stressful on the psyche.
(Sometimes, it seems pretty duh to me that Alvina was right: I need to sit myself down in a shrink's office to iron out the ever mounting issues (chronic sense of alienation, irrational need for security and safety, paradoxical fear of dependence and independence, etc., among various phobias) I keep discovering.
Sometimes, I really think I'll be much happier if I were mad ... if only I dared step off the precipice of sanity.
Anyway.)
On the bright side, hey, I'm prolly a perfect fit for a ménage à trois.
(Yay?)
posted by s at 01:44
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