Flash Freezing Relationships

Posted on October 17, 2012 Updated on October 17, 2012

So inAccept Things and Let Go, I spoke about people who can play a major part in your life, but then decide to walk away; a theme that could teach you not to expect much from people or get too attached to them.  But stuff like that make me wonder why do people do that? Just walk away without looking back?

1) We view the same things differently. Our perceptions of the same reality might vary, and while something might have meant everything to (A), it might not have meant nothing to (B) – the person who walked away. That is the worse thing that could happen in a relationship – someone giving it a value more than the other – and so in the end all you end up with are people taking each other for granted and having hearts get broken. There’s an interesting quote that says, “Truth is a battle of perceptions. People only see what they’re prepared to confront. It;s not what you look at that matters, but what you see. And when different perceptions battle against one another, the truth has a way of getting lost….” So be careful of what you really see because in the end, if you get hurt because of your clouded perception, people are just going to blame you, and not the other person.

2) Maybe (B) wanted to keep (A)’s memories of the relationship at its best. There are times when people who play B’s roles just send emails once every two years, so that a time reaches when A’s most recent memory of them are just those emails. They don’t remember the movie nights, and the hangouts, and the study groups. They just remember those one-lined emails. So in an attempt to preserve the good memories, “B” just pulls the plug on the relationship suddenly, leaves at its best, instead of having  it deteriorate into nothingness. They basically Flash Freeze* the relationship.

Personally, once I put the concept of Flash Freezing in my mind, I felt much better because I finally started to forgive those who walked away (maybe that was not their intention, but remember to give your friend 70 excuses).  So stop holding on to what hurts, and make room for something more beautiful. And remember in the end, you can’t really control what happens to you but you can control how you react to what happens to you.

And that’s it for today.

(Technically Flash Freezing happens when objects are rapidly frozen by subjecting them to cryogenic temperatures using something like liquid nitrogen. The effect is pretty dramatic as you can see in the following image. So maybe it helps if you think of  your relationship frozen in the midst of all this white smoke…what you think?)