The game of drawing and erasing lines

‘Mind your own business’ – he drew a line curtly.

‘Scold me; but don’t be sad or silent.’ – she erased a line softly.

We express our emotions in different ways with different intensities; sometimes we are subtle and sometimes harsh. If we observe carefully, except the basic communication needed for interactions with others in daily life, we are constantly drawing our image in others’ minds.

He is an angry bird. The florist lady is so motherly. The bus conductor is so funny. That neighbour is very irritating. Her husband is a moody fellow. My friend’s wife will sell him one day… and so on. We draw our opinion based on our observations and interactions. More than this, they draw their image on the canvas of our minds.

Then starts our next step: without our knowledge, we start drawing or erasing lines.

Every word, every smile, every gesture, every facial expression, every touch, every tear, every message, every silence, every negligence keeps doing the work of drawing or erasing the lines between you and the others in the background.

A nasty boy follows a college-going girl and makes weird attempts to get close with her everywhere. She chooses to draw a line by showing her footwear, by accompanying her brother or father or even warning directly based on how diplomatic, daring and irritated she is. A lady offers a seat beside her in the bus to a man who was just a colleague to indicate she is erasing the line to get promoted from just a colleague to a ‘would be’ partner. After a regular fight between and no talks for some time or days between the couple, the husband prepares a cup of coffee and offers to the wife. Some other lady, after trying all possible ways to adjust and live together, decides to depart and sends a divorce notice to her husband. The man who promised to help a boy in getting a job gradually gets irritated with the latter’s continuous calls, avoids receiving, starts receiving and finally blocks the contact.

Most of the time, we draw or erase lines indirectly. Unless we are insensitive we do not force the other person to erase the line for us and we do not draw the line rudely. The true problem occurs when one wants to keep the line and the other wants to erase it. They are one-sided relationships. They are not necessarily a girl and a boy in love. They can be two friends after a misunderstanding, a married couple after severe differences, colleagues with ego clashes, brothers with family fights and so on. Some lines are erasable but some lines remain permanent. In such cases, it’s always sensible to accept the truth and let the line remain drawn. There’s no use of post-mortem. It anyway cannot make the dead man alive. If we think post-mortem helps us to handle the other relationships better in the future by avoiding the same mistake, it’s just our illusion. Life comes up with a new question paper every time.

Erasing the line too early and letting others come close to you may create some possible problems or disappointments: one, you will gradually start realizing what you thought isn’t what it is; two, they may start taking you for granted, start taking advantage of you; three, it becomes very difficult for you to draw the line again.

There is a more sensible way of avoiding such mismatch: take time. Many a time we are hasty in erasing the lines. We let people enter into our inner orbits too fast. We do not take time to understand their ideas, thoughts, maturity, tastes, attitude, temperament, the value they show towards relationships, their lifestyle and so on. We just love the change. We love the newness. We just see what we want to see; not what they are. We do not give the time it’s time to decide whether they are compatible with us. It’s not about long term relationships like marriages; it’s important to take time even for other relationships, except the ‘on-the-go’ interactions at shops, travels and so on.

The same happens with drawing lines also. Every relationship comes with a line with a certain thickness at the beginning. We get introduced, acquainted, understood and bonded in the course of time. That’s when the thickness of the line gets reduced. But if something adverse happens, we try to draw the line again. How we draw the line again matters. Before that, it’s important to think if it is really necessary to draw the line again. If it’s truly inevitable, it’s sensitive to make sure we make it as less painful as possible to both - ourselves and to the person on the other side of the line. The line was not erased from one side. Both of us had erased the line and created that bonding. Now, if only you want to draw the line again, it’s human to make it less painful irrespective of who contributed to the collapse of the relationship.

The ideal way of doing the circus of drawing and erasing the lines is to achieve a perfect handshake between your logic and emotions. We miss the happiness that relationships bring if we are too precautious and keep the line intact with everyone. At the same time, we lose control of our own value and give control of our emotional well-being to others if we carelessly erase the lines. The game of drawing and erasing lines must go on but only after taking time, knowing when, with whom, how and how much!