Benjamin had a rough evening. Mind you the scale for difficulty has decreased significantly since a few years back, so all I am referring to is yelling. Still his pain was real, and the rest of us who live here were focused on supporting him without getting in the line of fire. 

 

He had sent a few messages to his favorite friends, and they had not responded. That is the bald fact. Yet his imagination magnified the silence to heightened levels of rejection, and permanent ostracism. 

 

"Someone told them that they hate me and they will never write to me ever again!" 

 

I wanted to laugh, which of course I didn't. I also wanted to put my arms around him and snuggle, which past experience has shown is like trying to give a bath to a cat. 

 

Ben's brother is insightful about how his mind works, and realized something. Every time my computer across the room dinged to alert me about a message, Ben leaped toward the hope that someone had written to him, and was freshly disappointed to see that they hadn't. Mind you it is not that I am wildly popular, in fact many of the messages were regrets to an invitation I sent out. But in Benjamin's mind he was a loser. 

 

We listened to Ben's feelings, and made up a story about how his friends are busy with the start of school, and will probably see him in a few weeks. Zack also asked if he could turn off my notifications. 

 

It is not as if I am any different. My mind makes assumptions about the exuberant popularity of other people, and amplifies the dire significance of that one person who has not responded to a text. I recall a time when I greeted a friend and she barely looked at me. I went on to construe meaning in the brush off, which I obsessed about for a week. When I eventually saw her again and asked if she was mad, she had no memory of seeing me that day, and described the tough things she had been dealing with. 

 

Benjamin did eventually calm down. I am not clear whether it was the result of an actual response on his screen, or the ebb and flow of feelings that go haywire. I realize that we love him, and sometimes, some days, that is enough.