Lost frequencies.
Attention, in this day and age, is a fickle thing.
With an average attention span of just 8 seconds, getting someone's full and undivided focus and holding it for long is a legitimate art form.
It's easier dealing with strangers. Not because they're more likely to pay attention to you, but because it hurts less if they don't. When it comes to people we love… it just hits differently.
For the sake of oversimplification, I’d say that the more we invest (emotionally) in a relationship, the more attention we expect in return.
But it doesn't always work out that way, does it?
Blinded by our desire to feel heard, seen, understood - we fail to account for a lot of variables. ‘If they wanted to, they would’ is not all it's cracked up to be.
The way I see it, everybody's world is a solar system. At some point in time, you might be someone’s sun, but rest assured, you’re also someone else’s Pluto.
(Who am I kidding, everybody loves Pluto. And yes, in my mind, it's still a planet)
No matter where you find yourself in someone’s solar system, you get a limited number of orbits. That’s good news and bad news at the same time, depending on who you ask.
All this to say that the amount of attention we get depends on a bunch of factors.
How close we are to the other person, how good or bad they are at dividing their attention (I fall into the second category) and the obvious one - how much time they have on their hands.
Time is the greatest gift you can give someone.
To hop from one analogy to another, failing to get and hold someone’s attention feels a lot like a jammed radio signal. Their attention is a lost frequency.
All you get is static.
Then, once in a while, you get the radio to work. You get your favorite song, playing loud and clear, and you don’t want it to stop. You get clarity.
Chasing this feeling can be quite addictive. No wonder attention seekers get such a bad rep. But at the end of the day, it’s a basic human need. Attention makes us feel connected and validates our existence.
I don’t plan to stop trying to unjam that radio signal. But I will keep searching for more frequencies to tune in to.
Starting with my own.