Reflections - An Empath's perspective on communication with Tourists

I've just woken up and my head is barely together. I need to be alone, I need to have a coffee. No, I'll skip the coffee today. Today I will sleep. I just get out the door of the hostel. Immediately there is someone in my face with a smile and brightly, "What is your name?"

Partially in shock and partially having my personal mind space invaded so violently with 'brightness' I retract the angry response that comes to mind and quickly replace it with, "Excuse me, I'm not talking right now, I just woke up."

Being polite in these situations is difficult for me.

I wander downstairs to find a place to eat away from all the 'bright' conversations that are going on. Everyone that passes me on the way smiles, shining brightly with a blinding temporary 'I'm a tourist energy' and expects an immediate response of 'hello' or a small conversation which normally starts with 'where are you from?' as though I've known them for years.

-- Don't you understand it takes conscious effort to communicate like this, this fake inflated way, draining my energy? Especially at this time in my wakingness? Have you a brain on your shoulders? --

I find a place to sit downstairs away from people with yet another bright shining tourist expecting immediate face recognition and a smiley response. I engineer a deflective response of 'don't be offended I'm just entering my own space here in this corner here ok?' with a quick subtle glance and a simple, 'hi'.

I sit in my spot in the corner and in the balcony above there is a loud American girl from Colorado (I know this because of how loud she it) that is very 'brightly' and she is now speaking to the second French person she's ever spoken to in her "whole entire life" and his name is apparently the same as the last French person she spoke to. I have no choice but to listen. I'm writing in my pad at the time and I decide in the writing to write this article Steemit about what I am writing.

Here's what I wrote in my pad,

"Everyone here is on a high, like a Raki high, [raki is a spirit made from grapes, a big like vodka, very popular in greece]
but no one's drinking and no one is drunk,
They'll take this 'high' away with them,
and believe it originates in the location [of their holiday].
A general ignorance of their emotional body and its functions are the cause of this 'hot air' condition.
It all wreaks of insecurity."

One gentleman from Australia is speaking loudly in an overly caring tone near me and saying goodbye to the people in the courtyard where I am sitting. He's known them for two days and is like a little child not wanting to leave, gushing with 'happiness'. Fear of being abandoned is a key insecurity that never really leaves us. Especially the 'snowflakes' that modern society produces.

You might consider me overly cynical. Normally I live on the street. Tourists can make me feel nauseous. I find it harder to get the emotional security I need in a hostel than alone on the street because of all these constant, forced interactions based on people's insecurities which take energy for me to participate in. At least on the street there are no presumptions and none of this immediate abrupt 'brightly' conversations which expect an immediate response. If you don't give the engineered response that is correct for the energy, you can be blamed for the insecurity that the person on the high has been suppressing. This 'high' is an expression of feeling, 'wow, life is good. My shit life back at home was all wrong, and here everyone and everything is great.' Yes my friend, tourist land is designed to accommodate your mind and... your money.

Run out of money and you'll soon find out that every tourist destination is just the same as your home is. Shit. Everyone is constantly concerned about business and money, especially here in Greece.

There is still happiness and light-heartedness in the authentic locals and the 'deflated world of the real' but its expression is much less frequent and also authentic.

I continue to share what I wrote while feeling this experience,

'If you fail to give the correct response [to this energy]
their insecurity becomes a threat.
It is revealed [you have revealed it with your real response]. A reaction of a projection
of you being to blame for their unhappiness [then ensues]
and you become temporarily the new source of their insecurities."

People ultimately want to be little children again. They want to lose responsibility for life. They want to find a place in the world and in their reality where they can experience no pain. It's a la-la land that doesn't exist but modern consumer society holds it over people's faces like a carrot on a donkey telling them constantly, 'yes, you can have it, and yes, it is possible.'

"For a delicate vessel as myself, sensitive to projections [both conscious and unconscious], communication is a minefield. I prefer to just fit within the known personality type of the quiet introverted artist/writer type. Unless of course, I'm drunk."

It's a choice to be the personalities we are. Personalities are a game. Every conversation is a poker table. Sometimes the rules are more lax and people are more sharing with their energy. Other times things are quite tense and the stakes are high within, while on the exterior everything is 'just fine' and everyone is 'high'.

This of course is a perspective. But maybe you never knew why that quiet person in the corner didn't speak to you at the hostel in that 'amazing place' you went for your holiday in Greece.

Once in a gypsy moon I have the energy for this sort of communication. This can get me into trouble because if I meet the same people again I met while I was on that 'high', they expect me to be the same 'high' person I was when I met them on the 'high'.

It's better just to be me all the time. When I feel 'high', I prefer the music as expression. Or I can engage with people that really know me well and have very interesting intuitive conversations on the real.

Thanks for reading, please upvote, comment and re-share!

All the best,

Monty