We all need an audience

 

Yesterday, enjoyed a re-broadcast of a This American Life story about a tween named Maya & the challenges she faced developing friendships with others her age.  Although not diagnosed with anything from the autism spectrum, she displays some characteristics typical of those who are - including being challenged with how to handle the natural banter, the give & take of social relationships.  

Maya was over ten when she found her first friend.  Not first close friend - first any sort of friend.  And it wasn't because Maya pushed others away - she wanted friends, they just never connected.  Until Charlotte.  In Charlotte, she found a kindred spirit.  In Charlotte, she found her first audience.  As the narrator - This American Life producer Chana Joffe-Walt, Maya's older sister - says, we all need an audience.  Charlotte was & is Maya's.

  

We all need an audience.  We all need the ability to banter, to practice the to & fro of everyday social interaction.  

Maya was challenged to make friends because she simply didn't "get" the give & take of human communication.  She reached out, but no one - until Charlotte - reached back.


Listening to the story, thought of all the people I see every day at an older friend's senior residence.  How some of them are blessed with an audience, with one or more friends who are there for them.  I think of the women who sit at the big table in the Club Room, of the tables in the formal dining room that are ringed with friends, of the tables in the cafe with small groups of older people dining TOGETHER, making a meal into a social event. Blessed beyond measure, graced with an audience, with people who care that they are on this planet.

And I think about the many people who dine alone, or sharing a table with someone else, sharing only physical space, not psychic.  I think of the fact that - unlike youngers - their audience is tenuous, could be gone in a heartbeat, either moving somewhere else, admitted to the medical center, or a more dire end.  Unlike Maya & Charlotte, who can imagine their friendship lasting for decades & decades, my older friends are never sure of what the next week - next day or hour - might bring.  

We all need an audience, we all need someone who knows us & responds, but it asks a lot of people to invest real emotions in friendships that are, by their nature, fragile & fleeting.  

Smiling, thinking about a particular older friend.  She has no problem with audiences.  To her, the world is her audience.  She takes pure joy in being with others, in learning about their life.  If you told her that this fellow or that woman would only be at her residence for a week, she'd never think to herself, "Well, I certainly wouldn't bother investing my time with them."  How long she'd know them would matter - only that they were there in her here & now.  

Another friend comes to mind.  Every Friday, he connects with retired amigos who all worked at one time or another with each other.  The youngest is a kid of 73, the oldest is closing in on 100.  My bet is that when they get together, not a one sees the others or feels himself anything but the strapping young fellows they all were just yesterday.

We all need an audience.  And we are all well served when we act like Maya - putting herself out for others to connect with, even when there doesn't seem much reaching back - and my older friend, who would never stoop to rationing her friendliness.  

Look around.  Who is your audience?  Take a moment to applaud them, to offer thanks & appreciation.  Bravo!