Like so many other things in today’s world, relationship dynamics have also changed. While it is natural for every generation to lament the loss of whatever they felt was good in their time, change is inevitable and the sooner we learn to accept and adapt ourselves to the changes, the better all around. The alternatives are to constantly walk over eggshells, remain silent, or feel ignored while in the company of others.

I, for one, am grateful to the much-maligned social media for giving me pointers to navigate personal, official and familial relationships. Stick with me and I will try to explain.

Let us look at some scenarios first, all to do with personal relationships, as those are the ones most affected by the tectonic changes in the world today.

• ‘I don’t have the mental bandwidth to talk about that problem right now – Adult son/daughter to parent.
• Oh no! Can I skip the get-together? I can’t handle all the drama that is bound to happen there – A work-stressed woman/man.
• I get very stressed if you talk of my unit test – a child of seven to his mother.
• Why do you avoid speaking to me, when I have some genuine complaint? – an elderly parent to her daughter.

What do these statements reveal?

• The daughter/son who pleads about the lack of ‘mental bandwidth’ is just dealing with too much at work or other stressors and it is not about you at all.
• The person who wants to cry off the get-together is just not in the mood to face intense emotional encounters.
• The child is not parroting his parents’ words but is truly anxious and wants to avoid the topic.
• The mother is truly perplexed that her daughter doesn’t take time off to discuss the mother’s problems.

Let us not for a moment forget the unbearable pressures of school/college with relentless competition to just stay in place, stress and uncertainty related to work, added to the demands of daily life in a world that refuses to pause or give a break. Aren’t these enough of stressors to both the young and old?

If the younger generation has it tough, the older one doesn’t have it easy either. Trying to come to grips with a hi-tech world that moves beyond their grasp, just as they master the latest gadgets, is just one of the frustrating things in life. They are additionally grappling with health issues, the challenges of living by themselves and dealing with the attendant day-to-day problems. With all this, it is understandable that any close inter-generational interaction is fraught with tension…and hence the eggshells. Why, grandparents of yore didn’t have to scrupulously follow a bullet-point list of dos and don’ts while interacting with or taking care of their grandchildren!

But it is not all bad news, if everyone makes an effort to understand the latest set of rules. For instance, relationships today are broadly marked by one or several of these:

• Boundaries and privacy.
• Reducing attention spans of people, making long conversations difficult, if not impossible.
• Vanishing filters in communication by all age groups. No hidden agendas. Bluntness is the key. You get what you see.
• Reluctance to face emotions.

It is their pragmatism that makes the younger generation draw boundaries and respect yours. But for all that they are no less caring or emotionally invested in their relationships. And the best thing is, they respect the boundaries, including those of their spouses, family and elders, if they care to set them. Taking offence at such boundaries is unnecessary. Look at it as a way of reducing the eggshells around.

So, when an adult son or daughter says, ‘I don’t have the mental bandwidth to talk about that problem right now. We will speak tomorrow,’ they are not brushing the parent off, but drawing the line on being pressured.

The parent who knows better than to push, especially since it can wait for a bit is one happy parent. They know that the boy would have somehow made time for it had it been urgent. But the parent is still upset. At least the boy could have been more patient, couldn’t he have?

I scrupulously tweak my privacy settings in my apps, to ensure only those I want to, can see my profile/updates/stories and contact details. So why should I keep my life and space open for all? Today privacy is the key word in relationships. To the earlier generations this would be akin to cutting someone off from their life. They never thought twice before grilling their loved ones about everything going on in their lives or hesitated sharing their own private news with them.

However, it is no longer acceptable to pry into the affairs of each other, or barge into their physical space without permission, unlike times past when family members, especially the elders could do just that, as a matter of right. I am not talking here about minor children, as they still need age-appropriate supervision.

The other thing is the reducing attention spans of people. This trait had prompted Twitter (now X) to come up with the 140 character limit, as the readers might lose interest half-way through a long post. I call this the ‘bullet-point generation.’ I sometimes even wonder if the entire world is afflicted with ADHD, but that is the way it is. Short communication is the key to keeping someone’s attention intact, family members included.

Coming to the alarmed reaction of the person who wanted to cry off from the get-together, it speaks of the universal reluctance to face emotions — whether one’s own or those of others. This is at the root of a lot of stilted interpersonal interactions. Sharing and validating the emotions of others is not something most people are comfortable with. If individual relationships are fraught with tension, gatherings and get-togethers can be worse. This is mostly because conversations are often influenced by past encounters, grievances and unresolved emotional baggage of some of the members.

Avoiding conflict in the limited time we spend with each other is the highest priority, especially if the relationships are close or familial, and so important to us. For, an inadvertent remark that might set off a full-blown emotional meltdown and turn it into a disastrous get-together — with a cacophony of eggshells cracking all around! No wonder the person wanted to avoid it all.

This is why I talked about the social media model for interactions. In digital interactions, we exchange information, updates, wish each other on special occasions, are polite, applaud achievements and commiserate with problems, often with just an emoji. Is it that difficult to do all this in person, and that too for a fixed amount of time?

With no intense emotions involved, the eggshells can be safely dispensed with. That to my mind is the biggest takeaway of following the above social media model! Some depth in the relationship might be sacrificed in the process, making even close relationships feel somewhat shallow. But that is the collateral damage under the circumstances. At the cost of sounding rather fatalistic, I would say that a shallow relationship is any day better than a hollow one. Would or wouldn’t you agree?

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