I got divorced in 2017. I reached out to a couple of people in the early stages of that happening, and honestly, a very small percentage got back to me at all, and the ones who did usually said something generic like “That’s too bad. I am here for you if you need me.” If I then subsequently reached out to them — remember, “they were there for me” — they’d usually not respond on that time, and then tell me something like “I was so busy with my young kids, you know?” It all eventually caused me to write this post on how, in general, people don’t necessarily want to help — they want to be let off the hook.
I was pretty angry during that time, or maybe a better word is I just felt like a completely irrelevant piece of shit. Here’s this big thing happening in my life, a seismic change, and seemingly no one can be bothered to care. Over time, I tried to reduce that anger by realizing that people prioritize what they want to prioritize, which is usually something about their own families, careers, hobbies, or trappings of success. Me getting divorced is a blip on the radar of many people, even some people I view as close. It should also maybe be noted that during roughly the same period, my cousin told me that “everyone in my family hates me” (fun!) and that’s why no one cared. So that was also a pretty helpful little tract of land to navigate.
