Following some after-dinner exercise and a shower, I joined my wife one recent evening to find her enjoying a television drama—something about psychics and crime. I’d just turned to catch the action and, lacking context, was instantly riveted by a ski-masked man wielding an uzi, ordering everyone down onto the floor in what appeared to be a lobby or similar public space. The gunman was yelling for the hostages to don hoods of some sort, which I can only suppose some unseen accomplice I joined too late to see must’ve been passing out, to ensure they remained visually clueless.
I could feel my own tension and upset climbing, just empathizing at how everything being so utterly unseen would dreadfully compound the already-nauseous terror flooding the growing unknowns unfolding. I’m already thinking: How is this human horror remotely considered entertainment? I instinctively turned away, letting out a frustrated sigh at yet another example of human suffering selling in popular media.
One man on the floor was stealthily inching under his jacket for his concealed firearm when the gunman noticed. Honing sharply with uzi trained, he ordered the man to slowly unholster and lay clear his weapon. My back only too-happily turned as I lingered long to pour myself a drink, I waited for shots and screams of anguished terror—the inevitable, initial, example-to-others execution. Instead comes a woman’s voice saying, “His gun is going to jam. Trust me.” Then shots. Best I could gather from the dialogue, psychic insight had swayed the concealed-carry man to take an otherwise-suicidal chance and shoot the assailant dead.
Drink in hand, and feeling it surely safe at last, I turned to see instead bullets pumping into a man’s chest, his white shirt springing blooms of red. Having just rejoined the action, context was again scant except that he appeared to have likely been one of those driven earlier to the floor. Feeling gutted at the graphically explicit visuals, I was undone yet again, appalled that this passes for ‘entertainment.’ I couldn’t stop my expression and body language betraying the depth of my sorrow and disgust.
“I’ll turn it off,” my wife said, rightly annoyed that a compelling plot line dangled still in cruel suspense. I say nothing. I can’t say, “No, that’s okay.” Because for me, it’s not okay. I can’t say, “I’m sorry,” because sorry’s still the furthest thing from my mind. Rather, my breathing has involuntarily quickened. A mild panic grips my chest and sickens my gut, and it feels that tears of “I must somehow just be hopelessly abnormal” merely await permission. None of this is new; not to me, nor to my wife. It’s more my not-uncommon, predictable and involuntary response to callously inflicted human anguish or suffering that befalls me, most especially when served up as casual entertainment. I’m not quite sure how to honestly apologize for being sensitive—for being inescapably who I am.
Head hung and feeling ashamed, I drop sinking into the love seat beside my wife, awaiting any less challenging programming choice. Instead, she gets up, and I’m left sitting alone.
“I must obviously not be much of a man,” I despaired emptily, then with the added realization, “and I guess apparently… not even much of a woman, for that matter.” “What do you mean?”, she asked tensely. “‘Men’ aren’t supposed to be upset by violence,” I reply. “Unless maybe it’s their… kid, or their… wife, or some family member. But anyone else, somehow it’s supposed to be all ‘not my problem; no big deal.’ And even more pathetic to get so upset at fictitious violence on TV.”
She leaves, clearly upset—as am I—and an unusually long time passes before she reappears. She returns explaining that the scene I viewed was the only violent scene in an otherwise non-violent episode, key to the plot, and may have in fact merely been a woman’s dream at that, but she’d not know for certain until watching further. Hardly gratuitous violence, she insisted as we scanned a list of safer sitcoms to watch. “I just feel like you’re judging me for liking the shows I like,” she said. “You always walk in just when the only violence of the whole show is happening. It’d be like someone walking in just when that boy commits suicide in Dead Poet’s Society, then saying you must like violence.”
Her example has my full attention. Hell, I all but worship Dead Poet’s Society precisely because themes of living large from the heart hold such kindred appeal to my sensibilities. But I still don’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” I sincerely offer for having unconsciously caused such a rift. “I can’t change that I’m sensitive. I don’t know how. I sometimes wish I could, but don’t even really know how to want to. I can’t even like who I’d have to become in order for that stuff to not bother me. It’s fine for others. I really don’t mean to judge. I just don’t know how to not react.” Still clearly tense, every expression and isolating posture says she still feels under siege.
A gulf-bridging thought beckons. “You know how sometimes you’ll be reading or seeing something about some being’s suffering—a person, or animal—or maybe something super sweet about helping to ease someone’s suffering, and because of your empathy and compassion, you will just have tears streaming down your face?” I ask. “Those are the times that all I can think of is how truly and completely home I am with you. Because I relate so deeply to that.” At last, she turns to me, then draws closer to lay her head on my shoulder. “That’s what I love so much about you,” I’m privileged to confess anew. “You have such a beautiful, tender heart.”
She snuggles closer still, seeming just to need reassurance that everything’s OK—that we’re OK—even as I find myself helplessly breathing into and through the very same vulnerable need. I pull her tightly into me, savoring, sure, my soul reminded. Somehow, I feel we share an understanding now—or again, really—that sometimes, sensitivity gets in the way; that’s true. But ultimately, it simply is what it humanly and honestly is. And for us, within our values and deep truth, sensitivity expresses profoundly and authentically our humanity, our heart, and to me, our richest beauty.
Photo/Stocksnap.io
Thank you for sharing this, Tim. I think that words shared by sensitive men about their life challenges and how they manage them, goes along way to helping understanding for and about sensitive men.
Great work on this one, Tim. Please to partner with you!