In Pursuit of Relatable

 

With whom do we communicate at a deeper level? What kind of people do we like to meet / interact / be friends with? Ever wondered why we find some persons relatable and why do we reject others? The reason is our yearning for sameness. We try to find similarities with which we can relate. Man's hunt for this sameness has led him / her dramatically to some thing or the other. The most transformative among these were the findings and exposing of shared experiences which we literally know as the "Me too" movement.
   This is the decade where DAE - 'Does Anybody Else' reached a new level of indulgence by people who were in the pursuit of relatables / sameness. Under DAE, posts like - DAE escape to the washrooms to get rid of people during gatherings? DAE love to watch movies back to back? DAE avoid bathing in the winters? DAE get nervous and anxious during presentations? DAE feel annoyed at unwanted surprise guests? This decade witnesses many DAE and memes that bore a testimony to the fact of how similar we humans are. Things like - Who dives at the leftovers after the guests leave our home? Who hates talking to long distant unreal relatives? Who is awake through the night and brainstorming on the dialogues he / she ought to have used in the argument?
   An entire industry is thriving successfully because of man's need and love for similar experiences. We are mostly drawn to tragedies, then to acts of kindness and many of us even wish to become a child again.  Rebecca Mead, author of the essay, "The Scourge of Relatability" has written about the dangers of relating with others. According to her essay, if we all keep searching for sameness we may stop being empathetic to others who are not like us. According to Mead, the priority for relatablity points out to the rejection of "the effortful summoning of empathy". The mentality of looking for sameness is our basic human trait that allows us to connect with one another.
   Words are coined to use them when we find sameness in some one. Terms like "same", "mood", "me". Acronyms like SOML (story of my life), TFW (That face when), meIRL (me in real life). All this builds our affinity towards sameness and we look for things with which we can relate to while communicating and building relations. We are always moved by some of the great movies / songs / literature  because something or the other in it resonates with our personality. When we find others who love and admire the same things that we do; we are deeply glad as we feel that we are not the only ones to love and admire that particular piece of music / movie / literature. We feel a sense of human commonality and it is this commonality that will never diminish our pursuit for relatables.