P&M VIII - Nobody understands me

Of all the things a person says nothing is meant with every fiber of one's being as much as "Nobody understands me". As usual, there are times when this is nothing more than an ordinary phrase. For example, I was in Paris for a day and trying to take in the city all by myself. Unfortunately, speaking English was no help. Whether I spoke it confidently in a basso profundo or in nervous frustration in a high falsetto; whether I took an hour over uttering two syllables or ran through the entire sentence in a nano second, all I got was that famous Gallic shrug and a friendly smile. When I said, "Nobody understands me" on that day it was no more than a statement of fact, which nobody understood either.

The usage that I now seek to talk about is the "Nobody understands me" that is a cry from the heart of a person distressed by the sheer obduracy of the rest of humanity in refusing to fathom them. In my time, I have been so wounded to the depths of my soul by the inability of my fellow-man to understand me that I have had to utter this phrase in broken tones to the receptive ears of my pillow more often than I would like to think about.

Just as I am sitting in a bad mood because my close friend refused to come with me for a movie, someone will come and want a heart-to-heart chat about how depressed he is because his girl-friend ditched him for someone else. He will not even understand that I am snapping at him only because I am in no mood to talk at that time and will go around telling people that I am selfish and not a good friend. And, you know what, people believe HIM!!! Nobody understands me.

My blog post of last week does not get enough comments and I am very sad and depressed about it. You would think that I can go and talk to my close friend and be consoled by him, wouldn't you? Not that I can notice. I go over to him expecting to unburden myself and he brushes me off with a frivolous excuse that he needs to take his sick mother to hospital. What sort of friend is he that he cannot even understand how much I need his support at that time? Even my close friends do not understand me.

People call me bad-tempered just because I snap at them when I am not in the mood. They just do not seem to understand that I am such a sweet person if only they will come and talk to me at the right time. They do not understand how helpful I am as a person if only they will ask me for what I can willingly give them instead of selfishly asking me for what they want. Nobody understands me.

I wish that God had thought fit to tattoo on the foreheads of people what sort of people they were. I mean, if someone came with a tattoo on his forehead saying "Please understand me", I could know that he is less likely to be spending time understanding ME. If someone came with a tattoo saying, "I have enough trouble understanding myself and cannot spare the time to be understanding you" one could conveniently give her a wide berth. Then, maybe, there may come one with "I have got nothing better to do than understand you" and you could latch on to her - provided you can fight your way through the hordes of other people like you. Without those tattoos, it is difficult to understand people. God really messed up when He designed human beings.

What?? Did you say that when I cry "Nobody understands me" I only mean that "I understand nobody and have never made any attempt to do so"? Noooooooooo! How can you be so cruel? Even you do not understand me.