Is Every Story For Me?: Thoughts on Empathy for “Teenage” Rebellion

The other day at the gym, I overheard a group of teen guys chatting about their graduation ceremonies and who’d get to sit at whose table. They talked about a girl who “never asks you questions back, like, no matter how many times you ask her. She just gives you an answer and then doesn’t say anything back!” and who wanted to hook up with whom.

Eventually, another gym member, an adult woman, came over and told them to stop talking so loudly and playing with the equipment like it was toys. The boys decided to “cut” before she “complained at the desk.”

I admit, I shared my fellow adult’s annoyance that they’d hang around the equipment and gossip. I kind of wanted to tell them that maybe this girl wasn’t asking them questions because she didn’t like them. And also that talking about who you and your buddies want to have sex with is a) really gross when you don’t sound like you think of the objects of your affection as people, and b) not an appropriate topic of discussion in a public place.

But I also thought: well, of course I don’t get why they chose to have this discussion here in this fashion. Most of the things they talk about — grad party tables, a social circle restricted to their classmates — aren’t important to me. Most of the stuff that’s important to me right now, like my career path, investing my salary appropriately, friends’ weddings, and figuring out when/if I want to have children, isn’t as urgent to them.

Obviously, there are some things that are important to everyone, regardless of age and background, such as being loved and accepted, doing the right thing, finding one’s place in the world, being a good friend, etc. But there are others things that are more likely to be important at certain times in one’s life and alien to those who aren’t in that space.

I don’t think it’s necessarily tied to age, although some feelings are more common in certain societies at certain ages.

For instance, I enjoy reading YA. Explorations of one’s identity and how one fits into the world speak to me, and so do the exciting narratives and beautiful writing of the many great novels the genre has to offer.

But even when I was a pre-teen and teenager myself, narratives that spoke of rebellion, sticking it to “The Man,” and “you can’t tell me what to do!” reform (as opposed to “here is what I want to do” reform) didn’t resonate with me.

For example, when I was sixteen or seventeen, my friends and I went to see RENT at the National Arts Centre. The character I found most sympathetic was Benny, the turncoat. In the musical, Benny betrays his friends’ Bohemian ideals by marrying a rich woman and becoming part of the capitalist system by buying buildings and trying to construct a studio.

I understood some reasons why Benny’s friends were mad at him — yeah, it was a dick move to say his friends didn’t have to pay rent and then change his mind, and definitely awful of him to insert himself into the Mimi-Roger love triangle. But… okay, ideally, companies shouldn’t evict the homeless from their squats, but Benny wasn’t doing it to be a jerk. He was trying to change the system, too — only he was working from within, which, based on the outcomes of the other characters’ actions, seemed to be the only effective long-term strategy for success. He was picking his battles in order to win the war.

Funnily enough, as a non-adolescent adult, I have more sympathy for the other characters because I’m more familiar with the support for their ideologies and reasons why they might choose to fight the way they do. But I respect their struggle intellectually, not emotionally.

In the same way, when I saw a production of Spring Awakening a few months ago, I didn’t feel drawn to the characters. Sure, the teenaged protagonists had a lot to rebel against. But sometimes, in doing so, the main characters seemed to cross the line between “Breaking foolish rules” and “Breaking rules that have good reasons behind them.”

Like, sure, if the adults forbid you from talking about sex or the sexual feelings you’re experiencing, that’s a silly rule. Rebel against it if you want. But stuff like “don’t have sex with a girl who can’t consent because she doesn’t understand what sex is or its relationship to pregnancy” — that’s not adult arbitrariness. That’s respecting other people and not being an egocentric rapist, no matter how the musical tries to spin it.

Obviously, committing sexual assault isn’t the same as rebelling against authority, but the invigorating spirit of the latter is how the musical tries to engage the audience with the former (and show it from the protagonist’s perspective). And maybe if I’d been drawn into the spirit of “adults are terrible, teenagers must be excused for living in the hard world they create,” the scene might not have jarred so harshly.

I guess the larger question I’m wrestling with is: are there certain types of stories that can’t appeal to me because of who I am and where I’m at in life? Just as I was unable to really empathize with the teen guys at the gym — maybe not even understanding the real kernel of what they were talking about because their feelings and the things they felt them about were so different than my feelings and the things that concern me — maybe I can’t empathize with certain kinds of protagonists and situations.

Would the selection of YA romance scenes that don’t resonate with me affect me differently if I were still fourteen? Would I still empathize more strongly with Benny than Angel? Would I see the potential in Spring Awakening instead of the problems?

I’d like to think that the answer is “no” — that good writing, direction, and performances can make me empathize with anyone, and that I’m a good enough person that I’d want to try. Or maybe I don’t like the idea that there are some stories that just aren’t for me. But either way, the artistry of the stories that don’t speak to me is obviously good enough that it speaks to many. The only place to look for solutions is within myself.