Thinking of You

When other people talk about you, what do they say? When other people think about you, what are they thinking? For many people, these questions make them anxious, because they imagine other people talking behind their back or thinking poorly of them. But this question makes me anxious because I cannot imagine anything at all.

Logically I know that other people talk and think about me, and I could probably figure out what a person knows about me, or even how they would answer a direct question about me. And when I’m with someone, or talking to them online, I can get a sense of how they feel and what their reactions mean.

But I really struggle to put myself into the position of someone thinking about me when I’m not around. I can sometimes manage it if I prepare a specific scenario – eg the woman from tuesday’s post using her matching kettle and remembering me – but even then I have a hard time forming a coherent image of what she is thinking.

Ultimately, the fear I have when I wrestle with this is that people aren’t thinking about me at all. They don’t dislike me – they might even speak highly of me if prompted – but I do not otherwise exist in their mental landscape.