It’s hard to put a finger on it. It’s hard to articulate this feeling because I don’t think it has a name. If it does, I have never come across its usage, and when a language lacks the vocabulary to explain a concept, there exists a gap within our ability to connect with one another.
So, I have to equate this feeling to something. I have to give relevance and weight to a feeling that is so familiar and innate to my person, but in actuality, digging for a comparison feels like I’m doing an injustice to my humanness. Why? Because we all have this in us. When there’s a commonality that’s laced into every person walking the planet, I shouldn’t have to feel like I’m jumping through hoops trying to define what we all know to be true so that I can feel baseline understood. “But Taylor,” I whisper to myself, “the world is not that easy.”
For a while now, I’ve been feeling this source of “friction”, I’ll call it, whenever I know that I’m encountering a situation that is not right for me. Whenever I try to describe to a friend or family member why I just know a situation feels so wrong, my explanation comes out as mumbo jumbo. I usually get, “that’s not that bad,” or “you’re not giving it a chance,” or “not everything is going to be perfect”. Are they right? Yes, yes they are. Perfection is nonexistent, and there are far worse situations I could find myself in than the ones I have. So, at first glance, they’re thinking through my experiences logically and rationally. But, for as long as I have been alive, I have yet to find the words to rationally explain the friction that signals every nerve ending in my body that this, whatever “this” is, is not right for me.
*Cue exact moment where I lose people*
I’ll give a few examples to clarify what I mean because I’m aware that this is an abstract concept that needs to be tied down with concrete examples.
First, I’ll explain it in context with a guy I was recently talking to. When we first met, I was immediately intrigued. We had effortless, natural conversation, and I was captivated by almost everything he said. Let me just say, it takes a lot for me to be interested in a guy, which is arguably good and bad, but regardless, we seemed to just click from the very beginning. This kind of “high” is one I search for, especially in men, because I am a firm believer that there are a lot of things in life we have to settle for but love should never be one of them.
Even though everything felt so right, I had this aching feeling it was too good to be true. But, as we do, we ignore the subtle hints and keep moving forward. They don’t fade away, though. They just diminish in noise level and get shoved into the background until you’re forced to face them head on. I was once told that the red flags you ignore at the beginning are the reasons you leave in the end, and boy oh boy, if that ain’t the truest thing I’ve heard.
Long story short, that friction in me was my indicator that it was too good to be true. The little red flags I picked up on weren’t just there by coincidence. They were there to warn me to proceed with caution. I’ve gotten better at understanding them, but don’t let that be confused with “listening” to them.
My second example is with a job opportunity that presented itself. At face value, it seemed rather worthwhile. It checked a lot of my boxes and after having an initial conversation about the position, I felt like it would be a good fit for the time being.
However, as the day progressed and my conversations lengthened, I felt uneasy about the position. The source of friction rapidly grew to the point where I knew that I was not the right person for the job. I remember telling a friend that I just felt “weird” about it (my verbal explanations are tremendously subpar in comparison to my written explanations), and she alluded to the fact that I was being nonsensical and too picky. Again, I ignored my initial feelings and followed through with the interview.
Minutes into the interview, my intuition manifested, and I knew I was not going to take the job. I had a plethora of evidence to back up my decision, but that friction in me was the first indication that I needed to decline the opportunity. It was only in due time that concrete reasonings supported what I already knew to be true, which is where my central issue lays. How do I articulate that I know before I know?
You may be asking, “Why do you need to articulate anything if you know what you know? Isn’t that enough?” In short, I don’t really need to explain myself to anyone. Technically, I’m my own person and have the liberty to do what I please.
I also have family and friends who I deeply value and love and who value and love me. I don’t need everyone on planet earth to agree with my decisions, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier to relate to people, trust people, and feel connected to people when you can level the playing field and understand someone’s rationale.
I make a LOT of my decisions based on this innate feeling, so instead of living in a fairy tale and feeling like I’m making up my reasonings, I’d like to call attention to the source of friction that stops me from moving forward with whatever I’m feeling uneasy about.
Think of this as describing love to a person who has never been in love. That person can read all the Nicholas Sparks’ books in the world, watch every romance movie known to man, and listen to someone who is deeply in love describe how surreal the feeling is, but if they have never fallen in love, their body does not truly know what love is.
Does that diminish what you feel inside? Absolutely not.
Does that put a hindrance on your ability for you and that person to relate to each other? Yes.
Does that mean you should stop falling in love? No, it just means that you’re probably going to have a harder time explaining everything else you’re doing because they don’t understand the love that’s driving you to make your decisions.
Look, at the end of the day, my instincts have my back. They’re not looking out for anything else other than me. They don’t care whether I fall in love, get my dream job, or ever move out of my mom’s house. They care about protecting me along the path I carve out for myself.
Would I love to be deep into a loving relationship? Of course.
Would I love to be working a job that I’m passionate about? More than anything. But I refuse to engage in anything that feels wrong to my core. Nothing— I repeat, nothing— is worth sacrificing that feeling for. There will be more men, more job offers, more opportunities that may not be overwhelmingly attractive from the get-go but at the very least, feel worth the slow pursuit.
All in all, I will continue to honor the source of friction within me as best as I can. I might not be able to convince the world that “friction” is the best indicator for why a situation may be wrong, but something tells me that if I feel so strongly about explaining it, there’s people who need to hear it. And that’s how I know that friction is a good enough reason to walk away from anything. Because when I do what feels natural to me, friction is nowhere to be found.
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