David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

love

In a vulnerable moment, woman confesses she’s scared to change

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I didn’t get a good look at her face, but I saw enough to be pretty sure it was Elizabeth. She was sitting alone in a black Lexus in the parking lot of the fast food restaurant where I had just eaten. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of months, so I walked toward her car and called her name as I approached the partially open window.

As soon as she turned her face toward me, I regretted approaching her. She looked as though she had been crying. Her makeup was a mess. She looked lost and very alone.

“Are you OK?” I asked. I couldn’t think of something more appropriate, so I asked the obvious.

She looked away and I was afraid she just didn’t want to talk. We don’t know each other that well, after all. I had never seen her in a moment of vulnerability of this sort. I had only known her as a charming, intelligent young woman who always had herself perfectly together.

After a long moment, she turned back to look at me. Her face was almost emotionally blank.

“No, I’m not OK,” she finally said. “Everything’s wrong.”

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Forget your partner’s best traits; worst traits predict your future

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See if you’ve heard this story before. Or maybe lived it.

It was about 12 years ago when my friend married a man who seemed like her dream guy. She cared about money and status and prestige in her church and community. He had it all. He was a successful businessman. He was respected and held positions in community organizations. He was a leader at his church who served on committees and boards.

Before they married, there were warning signs, but she ignored them. He checked every box on her list of things she wanted. Anything else must be insignificant. She could deal with the rest as long as she had her dream man. Her friends and family told her how lucky she was to have someone with his qualities. She agreed.

After the wedding, the fantasy started fading. Those little warning signs she had ignored — the flashes of anger and cruelty — became more common. He routinely called her vile names. He bullied her into not talking with friends anymore. He was insanely jealous for no reason.

And because she thought she had no choice — since she had her dream guy — she put up with it.

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No matter how admired you are, your work won’t make you special

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I’ve always wanted to be special. Haven’t you?

I was 5 years old when I became aware of this, but I was too emotionally immature to understand what I was feeling. I was outside the front of our house in Atlanta when a sudden thought struck me.

“I’m 5 years old and there are five of us in the family,” I said to myself in wonder. “That must mean I’m special.”

To an adult mind, that thought is nonsense. The coincidence was meaningless. But to a 5 year old who’s unconsciously struggling to feel special, it was something to hold onto. For that moment, it meant everything to me.

When we first reach self-awareness as tiny toddlers, the world revolves around us. All we experience are our needs and we know that the demands of our needs are met by other people. We don’t consciously understand that, but something in us gets it. We are special. We are the king or queen of the world for the moment.

You don’t remember it, but you felt that way. So did I. And we have spent our entire lives unconsciously trying to recover that wonderful moment when the world revolved around us — when we were special.

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