This weekend I started watching “Normal People”, which is based on the 2018 book by Sally Rooney of the same name and it follows two characters, Marianne Sheridan played by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Connell Waldron played by Paul Mescal, as they fall in and out of each other’s lives.
I’ll be upfront in that I haven’t finished the show yet; I have three episodes remaining. But throughout the show, I continue to question how much of this could be squared with one simple conversation, mostly from Waldron. Waldron insists on being distant and pulling back from Sheridan whenever the two become close and yet he always lingers on the edges of her life, always happily rejoining her life when the space is given.
As I’ve watched “Normal People”, I’ve begun to reflect on my own actions and feelings. My takeaway is that the worst direction you can take, especially when it involves other people, is no direction at all.
Whether it’s in platonic, romantic or personal relationships, clearly defining the norms and expected behavior for your relationships – a direction, so to speak – is critical. Throughout the show we see Waldron and Sheridan dance around each other because despite their strong feelings and attraction to each other, Waldron’s insistence on pulling away eventually makes Sheridan do exactly the same thing. In choosing no direction, they both mutually choose the same direction of self-sabotage.
Not every relationship needs a clear itinerary or course of action, but I think so many people are dancing around people they either desperately want to get close to, or desperately want to leave and rather than being upfront, we let our emotions run amuck as tensions build.
I think many of us, myself included, are terrified of hard conversations. If anything, many of us find safety in those foggy relationships that have no clear structure. It’s more comforting to have no direction and have your fingers crossed than take agency into your own hands. And yet, we continue to put ourselves in situations where those hard conversations need to happen because of our insistence on going somewhere and nowhere simultaneously.
I think the greatest disservice you can do to yourself, to those you care about and to relationships on the whole is to suffer in that silence of no clear direction. I say that because ultimately it’s a refusal to be honest about yourself and how you feel, yet you live as if everything is alright and you like the way things are headed. It’s why whether in real life, or in “Normal People” the solution most people choose is to walk away without a word and let someone else pick up the pieces.
You have to be honest with yourself about how you feel, and you need to be honest to others about how you feel. If you never pick a direction, then you’ll ultimately end up in a place that you never wished to be in. The truth hurts us, it hurts our relationships, but it also heals both of them as well. Be upfront about how you feel and what you want to do with said feelings, otherwise you’ll only end up isolated from your own wants and desires.
