Monday morning after Christmas, everyone’s back from the long weekend. Someone asks me how my Christmas was. (I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I don’t mind other people celebrating it.) So, I simply said that I didn’t celebrate it, but I had a nice weekend.
He didn’t really like that answer, so he wandered off. A few minutes later another colleague comes in and I ask him how his Christmas was, he says it was good and walks on – because he knows I don’t celebrate Christmas, so he doesn’t need to ask.
And this line, I read a while ago, pops into my head: Nothing like opening your presents and realizing the people closest to you have no idea who you are.
It’s not presents, but it’s the same principle. Each of us holds a unique combination of beliefs, ideas, likes and dislikes…and very often the people closest to you, your family members or close friends, show you that they really don’t know who you are.
It hurts. It’s a quiet, hollow realisation that a lot of people claim to love you, love a version of you that only exists in their heads.
And we make up excuses. It’s bad luck, poor communication. People are just busy. But those excuses don’t last for long. Because this happens too often, and too consistently, to too many people.
The harder truth is this. They don’t know, because they don’t look, and they don’t listen.
Proximity doesn’t equal intimacy, and time spent with each other doesn’t equal understanding. Affection isn’t attunement.
People aren’t necessarily cruel. But they are careless and they are inattentive.
They listen to reply, not to understand. They look just long enough to categorize, then stop. They project their own preferences, values, fears, and assumptions onto the people they love, and call that idea “this person”.
And so, gifts are meaningless, support feels hollow, relationships feel lonely, and conversations turn into pointless circular arguments.
We Stop Looking
Jordan Peterson says, (paraphrased), that when you look closely at another person, you realize they are as deep, complex, and unknowable as you are. They are not simple. They are not predictable. And that realization is unsettling, because it means you cannot reduce them to something manageable.
Seeing another human being clearly is demanding. You need more than surface-level politeness or good intentions.
Looking deeply means accepting that other people aren’t extensions of us. They’re not mirrors or side characters or NPCs. They are fully formed inner worlds with histories, contradictions, sensitivities, and desires that regularly clash with our own.
And that is uncomfortable.
If I truly see you, I might have to accept that you don’t want what I want for you, that you experience love differently or that my idea of helpfulness feels intrusive to you.
It’s a lot more convenient and simpler to remain shallow and rely on stereotypes. It’s easier to just make up a definition of someone, lock it in place, and then stop updating it.
We do this to each other over and over, parents, siblings, friends, extended family, colleagues…
“Oh, she’s the practical one.”
“He’s always up for a game.”
“She’s not sentimental.”
And once we’ve got the label, most people stop checking to see if it fits.
Performing Listening
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
— Stephen R. Covey
Most of us were never taught how to listen. We were taught how to wait our turn to speak.
Listening, for most people, is a performance. Make eye contact, nod and pauses at the right places. But internally, the mind is busy preparing a response, defending a position, or steering the conversation back to familiar ground.
We listen for openings or cues that let us jump in, and for confirmation that supports what we already believe. That isn’t listening. That’s strategizing.
When you listen in this way, you’re not meeting the other person. You’re managing them.
And people can tell the difference.
Their words disappear into a void. Their preferences are acknowledged once, and then forgotten. They repeat themselves across years and still feel misunderstood. They tell you who they are, and you attempt to correct them.
Eventually, many stop trying. They accept being partially unseen as the price of connection.
Projection Is Pricey
Projection is efficient, because it saves time and emotional effort.
If I assume you are like me, I don’t have to ask questions, tolerate ambiguity or work too hard to process the discomfort of difference.
But projection erases people’s identities.
It replaces curiosity with certainty and turns relationships into echo chambers. That is how someone can love you deeply and still have no idea who you are.
This shows up most clearly in moments that are meant to be intimate, like gift giving, advice, or comfort.
Because a gift isn’t just an object. It’s a statement: This is how I see you.
When that statement misses, it hurts because it exposes the gap between how we are experienced and who we actually are.
And the pain you feel when you receive a bottle of wine when you stopped drinking alcohol for your fitness regime, or a book you already have, or a piece of jewellery you would never wear, isn’t about the material thing. It is about recognition.
Learning To Look
Looking at someone doesn’t mean observing their surface traits. It means paying attention over time. Noticing patterns. Changes. Tensions between what they say and what they do. What lights them up. What drains them. What they avoid. What they linger on.
Looking requires you to slow down.
You can’t truly see someone, while multitasking or assuming you already know the ending of their sentence.
Looking means suspending certainty and holding the question “Who are you, truly” open and evolving, even after years.
Learning To Listen, Actively
Active listening is not a technique to make people feel heard. It is a posture of respect and it starts with intention: I am here to understand, not to fix, impress, or defend.
Practically, it looks like this:
Let people finish their thoughts without interruption. Even if you disagree. Even if you feel misunderstood yourself.
- Reflect back what you heard, not what you think they meant. “What I am hearing is…” not “What you are really saying is…”
- Ask clarifying questions that invite depth, not questions that corner or correct. “Can you say more about that?” “What does that feel like for you?”
- Notice your own reactions. The urge to explain yourself. The urge to jump in with advice. The urge to make it about you. And choose to pause.
- Tolerate silence. Silence is often where truth gathers courage.
- Accept that understanding does not require agreement.
- And perhaps most importantly, you remember.
- Carry what you learn forward. Let it inform how you show up next time.
Listening that does not change behaviour is theatre.
How To See Clearly
To see someone as they are, rather than who you want them to be, requires grief.
Yep, grief.
You may have to grieve the fantasy version of them, or the role you hoped they would fill, or the expectation that felt so reasonable in your own mind.
This is especially hard in close relationships.
Parents struggle to see adult children clearly. Partners refuse to accept change. Friends battle to update old dynamics.
But refusing to see who someone has become, doesn’t preserve closeness. It corrodes it.
Seeing someone means allowing them to disappoint your expectations without punishing them for it. It means asking what matters to them, not assuming you already know.
And it means letting their answers stand, even when they complicate your story.
Practice The Art of Looking
My old art teacher told us to “draw what is there, not what we think is there.” So, we had to stare at the image and make our hands draw lines that felt weird or counterintuitive, but produce realistic images, not projected realities.
- Start by checking your assumptions. When you think, “They would love this,” ask yourself, “When did they last tell me that?”
- Replace certainty with curiosity. Ask questions you do not already have answers to. Listen, actively.
- Pay attention to emotional reactions. What someone reacts strongly to often matters more than what they talk about easily.
- Notice inconsistency without rushing to correct it. Humans are complex. Contradictions are information.
- Update your mental picture regularly. People change. Stress changes them. Loss changes them. Growth changes them.
- Respect expressed preferences, even if you don’t share them. Especially then.
Are You Courageous?
Truly seeing others requires courage, because it removes your illusions.
You can’t hide behind “I meant well.” You can’t confuse effort with impact, and you can’t claim closeness without responsibility.
But it also deepens connection in ways nothing else can.
Being seen doesn’t mean being agreed with, but it means being accurately perceived.
Accurate perception is one of the rarest forms of care.
If you are reading this, and recognizing moments where you stopped looking, stopped listening, or replaced curiosity with projection, that’s important.
This isn’t about shame. Shame shuts people down.
This is about attention.
You can begin again at any point. You can ask better questions. You can listen more slowly. You can repair misattunement with honesty.
And if you are the one who has been unseen, your hurt makes sense.
You’re not too complex. You’re not ungrateful. You’re not asking for too much.
You are asking to be known.
That isn’t a luxury, it’s the foundation of real connection.
It starts, always, with looking and listening, truly, no filters.
Let’s see each other for who we are, not who we think we are.
Because we’re all human, and we all deserve to be seen.
-Nova
Comments ()