This weekend I realized something important about perception and intent.
I'm a really pale Indian woman. I've grown up hearing compliments about how fair I am and have this internalized hatred for it. I had a lot of personal hang ups about my skin that didn't really lend itself well to my self-esteem. And in fact, it made me wish I had darker skin. Which is weird in of itself. But in any case, I've always been mindful of the privilege I gained from being what I am....or so I thought. I really never liked to bring up my skin color unless I was making a self-deprecating joke about it. But I realized this weekend that intent and perception are very different things.
This weekend I did something I didn't realize until I had an amazing talk with my friend about it. My 'best' friend is a darker Indian girl. She doesn't outwardly complain about her darker skin but she does laugh about how pale I am and I let her because it's usually funny. My other good friend does this too when we're one-on-one. Only this weekend when I joked about it, I did so in a way that one friend (the 'best' friend) understood the punch line was me while the other friend was left feeling as if her skin made her unattractive. It was no one's intention and frankly, they're both incredibly gorgeous women so I didn't even think about it. But it happened and no matter what my intent she had a very valid reaction to it. I managed to make my friend feel left out and unattractive without even meaning to do so.
The thing about me is that I like to be honest about my insecurities and while I was airing mine to this friend, she countered with a million and one of her own. And through that conversation, we realized we'd been having two very different perspectives of this weekend. And more importantly, this awareness came about and I shudder to think that had it not, she would have gone away feeling like it was something she needed to shrug off and move on with because we're such good friends otherwise.
It is not okay to leave these feelings untouched. It's in our human nature to be really defensive of our words and actions when we feel our intentions are misread. But having an open conversation did wonders for my friend and I. We opened the floodgates on our feelings, we spent 3 hours that night talking, then another 4 on the flight back (hilariously bugging the passengers until we got seats together) and then another 5 the next day. My biggest lesson this weekend has been learning that no matter the intention, respect the feelings of others and never dismiss a friend's actions based on your perception. I genuinely thought this friend was avoiding me and was hurt by it only to realize how wrong I'd been. I hate to think what our friendship would have turned into if we hadn't had this talk.
So my tl;dr message: Talk to your friends when you're upset with them and hear their side out. Leave your ego and defenses at the door. Listen and learn.
