The Need For Closure

Life is never easy. If you feel like it is getting easy then you are not fighting enough problems in your life that are worth giving shit about.

Closure plays a very important in our lives. The closure is nothing but a human's ability to move past a situation or an experience. The experience need not be a pleasant one, it can be a soul-wrenching one. The closure allows one to move on. We need closure in situations, especially when things do not transpire the desired way. This post talks about closure, which is something I believe every human in their life faces at some given point in time. I intend to describe this with a personal experience of mine.

When is closure required?

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We are always searching for closure in life. When we fail an exam, we want to know the reasons for that. Getting fired from a job, we want to know what we did wrong. If we love someone and they just start ghosting us, we want to know whether there is something wrong with us (that is typically the first thing that comes to mind).

Sometimes when two people are involved in something but have different takes on the situation, then, in the end, one of the two can feel drifted apart for no apparent reason. This happens because two people went in for something with different expectations and personalities and coming out they want to deal with the situation in their own way.

I agree that this is correct in the perspective of the individuals, but most often they forget about the emotional needs of the other person involved. This is where the need for closure arises. One person wants to discuss the situation and close the chapter and move on while the other tries to either ignore the other or pretend that it never happened.

The one who has been left stranded faces a situation where there are only two options:

1. Forget all that happened as the other person and try to move on or,
2. Try to convince the other person to talk about it.

In both situations, the stranded person will deteriorate their emotional health in search of closure either way. This can lead to the devastating scenario of the stranded person becoming less trusting and antisocial.

My need for closure

I was almost falling for a girl back in my home country. This was a few years back. I and her were working together in different departments of the same company. She was beautiful and smart, but what she lacked was maturity and empathy for others.

A lot of the time alcohol acts as a great catalyst when you want things to get flowing. I used to believe that, but my perspective was about to change forever. At a party, I and her getting drunk then going home together lead to the most emotional turmoil period of my life. Some things happened and lead to a following disastrous period.

When we came to our senses, we realized that whatever happened should not have happened at least this soon. We approached the problem with two completely different mindsets. I was trying to talk to her to discuss the place we were in, whereas her mindset was about discarding this whole thing and move on with life.

First, she ghosted me for a week but since we worked in the same company, this plan failed. Then she tried to act casual as if nothing happened. I could not bear with it. I had confessed my feelings to her that night and she hadn't expressed hers. So, in my mind, I thought I deserve to have a talk about it and get some closure so that I don't keep clinging on to something that was never there and will never be there.

I was having a hard time trying to act casually. One more week passed with these shenanigans leading to my emotional state deteriorating by the day. My behavior showed it evidently. I was agitated and frustrated most of the days. I tried to pester her to talk and resolve the issue but she discarded the idea like you discard rotten bread. Finally, a mutual friend had to intervene and got us alone to deal with the shit that deeply involved us.

The talk didn't lead to a relationship, but it made it possible for me to continue with my life. I got to know about where I stand in her mind and what she expects from the friendship/camaraderie we had. I knew about where the boundaries are and beware of not crossing them. This is all I wanted from her from the start. The CLOSURE.

Parting Thoughts

Some of you might think this is very trivial, happens to them a lot, or it is not worth writing about. I don't condemn those people, but this is a problem that needs more discussion. People on both sides of the warfare should know how to deal with a situation where there is a necessity for closure.

People who are trying to run away need to get the message across their minds that if you are not narcissistic, then you should care about the feelings of others and give them a chance to move on by providing them the closure they deserve. It might be hard for you to do so, but once you do this, the chances of both of your lives being sorted increase and you can clearly focus on things that demand your attention.

Thanks for reading!