“Less Kind Than You Thought” is a short text about the feeling of not being able to live up to other people’s expectations, especially when forming new relationships. While searching for acceptance of who you are as a person, it can be difficult to accept that this also includes the less pleasant sides of yourself. Hopefully, a true friend will embrace both.
I edited it as if it were a phone conversation. In this way, it sounds as though I’m saying it to someone in a conversation, while it is actually an inner monologue, directed at whoever might hear it.
Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m less kind than you expected me to be.
That when you first got to know me, you thought I would never say anything mean, even if I was tired.
Or that I would always say you were right, even when I didn’t think so.
Maybe you thought, for example, that I would never get angry,
or at least not about something small.
Maybe you hoped that I would agree with everything, so that we would never have to argue about the truth, which can differ so much...
And then I’m afraid of the moment when you get to know me better.
That you’ll discover that sometimes I actually do those things.
That sometimes I’m simply in a bad mood.
Or that I start a discussion over something small, because I feel things should have been different.
That I tell you you’re not right, while you believe that you are.
And that you’ll think I’m very stupid.
Then I’m so afraid that you’ll find me less kind than you thought.