Do you really care?

There are people in life who are carers. We typically like to be around these kind of people. They ask you if you're comfortable when you visit them, attend to you to be sure you have what you need, and follow you to your room as if to introduce you to the wallpaper or something. They just want to iron out the wrinkles, reduce awkwardness, help you ease into being in an unfamiliar place. Their warm, kind presence makes any unfamiliar room feel homey.

And there are people who are not carers. You enter their home with a "Welcome!" on their lips that quickly fades as they sit down and turn on the television, their backs to you. "Make yourself at home" you hear as you wander down the hall toward the bedroom they told you was there. Or they are on the computer, or talking on the phone, or reading and you are left alone in an unfamiliar place trying to figure out what to do, to find where the bathroom is and wonder what towel you are to use, or what is expected of you. Obviously, it is not to talk while your host is watching television. So you try to pick up a magazine and leaf through it or look out the windows at the view. You can make a couple general kinds of comments and receive a comment over the shoulder of your host, but that's where it ends. Until the commercial.

I remember a weekend I had once with a friend who is not what I'd call a carer, although she thinks she is tremendously caring and attentive. It was really hard on me because I come from a family in which when we get together we are all talking together, laughing, just enjoying hearing the other ones talk. We didn't grow up with a TV and so we know how to communicate together without having to watch a ball game or something. And we weren't the kind of family who all got together, picked up our individual books and headed to different corners of the house. We were the family who, once upon a time, all clumped together on the daybed on the front porch of the house--all four of us kids, with Mother and Daddy in rocking chairs--and one of them would read aloud to us for a couple hours sometimes. Or we would laugh and talk together all evening there. People used to remark about how much love and togetherness we had as a family. Sad to say, that is not the case between my siblings and mother now. But most of us kids are good to be around and we bend over backward to be hospitable because we all genuinely like people and enjoy chatting and just being with them. But back to the weekend with my friend. It was a really hard visit off and on over the weekend. She didn't say a whole lot and seemed to be intent on reading a book that she had just gotten. It was expected that I would have a book and sit across the room reading my book while she read hers. For the entire weekend, I think. Very few things to do together. When I left after two and a half very long days, I didn't ever want to go back again.

What is it? Why are some people so oblivious to the needs of others? It is as if they are in a world all their own, or they lack the ability to see that the other people around them need some sort of entertaining or at least conversation.
I remember one woman I roomed with once, years ago. On a weekend trip with a third friend, she fairly exploded at me. "Why does it matter whether I'm comfortable, too warm, too cold, happy, sad, or anything else? You're driving me crazy!" I was stunned. I hadn't hovered over her firing questions about her wellbeing: I had just asked her a couple questions over the weekend to check and see if I could somehow add to her experience. In my mind, that is what gracious, mannerly people do. But she came from a family of people who were all in their own worlds and she rarely felt cared for. When she did, it was such an unusual experience that she didn't know what to do about it except let fly at me.

I suppose it is also related to the fact that some people are givers and some are takers. There are groups of people that exhaust me because I know that while I am around them I will be asked for things, requested to do things, and it will all be about those people. They tell stories that are about them, steer the conversation to their topics, lose interest if we wander to something I'm interested in, and simply put--they tenaciously adhere to their agenda. There is no room for considering my needs or how they come across. I really dislike being in their company for any length of time.

Other people are such a delight to be around. I have a couple friends of whom I never tire. We have "inside" language, meanings, stories. We've been friends for 20 and 30 years respectively. They are closer to me than my own siblings. And they are both givers. They elicit stories from me and I listen while they tell theirs. We both give and take. True delights to be around. Because in addition to being creative, smart, humorous, they are also capable of seeing the world through my eyes. I guess that is what a soulmate is: someone who can see the world through your eyes and therefore goes the second mile to be sure that your experience is the best it can be in their presence.

Givers and takers. One gives of themselves and takes note of the needs and experience of the other person. The other is consumed with their own needs, feelings, wants. To be around a taker is to feel like you're drowning. To be around a giver, your heart swells and you feel like you just drank an ounce of warm brandy when you have a cold and it's time to go to bed--good, smug, happy, comfortable. I know what kind of person I'm happiest with.