The chaos of curiosity and self-rejection

Photo by Autumn Goodman on Unsplash

What’s it like to be a young British woman of Afro-Caribbean descent, embarking on a quest to expand her professional network?

It’s not easy. As a person working within the creative industries, I am subconsciously reminded that my intersecting identities are always evolving in response to my environment. This is speaking from my own experience, of course.

I often have many questions and a lot of the time, to my surprise, they do not go about un-answered. At first, the initial response is surprise. People look at me with perplexity, then divert their gaze. They may even struggle to answer at first, laugh a little then say “good question” and from that point onwards, the conversation evolves – often flying off to places I never expected, encouraging me to view life and other people’s stories through a lens I’d never considered before. By the end of the conversation, I tend to feel uplifted, like I’ve made a connection with the stranger across from me. How did we get to this? How did I manage that?

Recently, I read a brilliant post shared by @thefemalelead on LinkedIn about self-rejection. It was a simple post talking about a Tweet the author, @Sahil, makes:

In the Tweet, Sahil outlines three hypothetical examples of occurrences where a person stops themselves from doing something out of fear and finalises with the words “don’t self-reject”. Those two words resonated with me and seconds later, naturally, I became my own psychoanalyst.

You ask too many questions... Said no one to me, ever.

Yet I feel most of the time that a lot of people find my natural desire to learn and understand slightly irritating. Why? When time over time, my questions are consistently met with honest and thought-provoking responses as opposed to impatience. I wonder if this adopted thought process could be seen as acknowledgement of a habit of self-rejection? Perhaps it is more to do with timing and location than the actual posing of the question itself.

“You think too much” I have certainly heard that one before… though mostly from family members or close friends. I believe it translates to “you think and talk too much, shut up.”

So…it seems we have arrived at an understanding! I am habitually applying my responses to questions made in a comfortable setting and swapping the context. As anyone who enjoys a bit of the English language knows, context is key to all narratives. Therefore replacing it, or in this case, twisting it, changes the meaning behind things instantaneously, which then impacts my behaviour and causes me to question myself.

I become nervous about asking questions, amalgamating into an awkward version of myself feeling the need to apologise, irrespective of the fact that, actually, I needn’t be sorry at all.

What could be more interesting than learning from people with a completely different outlook and experience than you? What’s not fascinating about getting to know a person who is as willing to talk as to listen? I ask too many questions? Maybe others don’t ask enough!

Why do you do what you do? Who are you when you are not at work? Who are you when you are at work, and are these two selves aligned or separate?

I shall ask my questions. This permeating thought process is stopping me from being who I am… and I am a person who asks many questions. So, I shall continue to ask my questions. Even if the answer is silence.