I didn’t look for my father on purpose, we ran into each other by chance and reacquainted at the funeral of a mutual acquaintance. I was curious to look at a man who is such a close biological relative, and to whom I look very much like. I looked at him, noted our resemblance, good physical shape, health. I was glad for my good genetics and that was the end of my interest in him. But he wanted to communicate in a father-daughter format. And what do we have to talk about? We have no memories in common. In fact, it’s a complete stranger to me.
And he started “building a relationship with me. In his performance this meant quite often call me and talk to me for a long time, trying to get into details of my life, to give some advice. Advice? Did I ask for it? At that point I was a grown woman, already a grandmother, and such attention from a stranger was very annoying to me. However, I continued to answer his calls, and at the same time I was annoyed at my inability to get away from him. The man called politely, just wanted to talk, and there was nothing to complain about. But how unnecessary it all was. I might as well have picked any man in the crowd, 20-25 years older, and started talking to him. About what?
For myself, I realized that there are different kinds of fathers – biological and social. Ideally your biological father and your social father are the same. And if they don’t, if the child was raised by another man, then that’s the man the child will consider his real parent. The worldview, the basic attitudes of life, we unnoticeably take over from our parents. I respect my stepfather very much, though I do not agree with him on many issues, I often catch myself using his sayings, some approaches to solving life problems. Socially, I am his daughter. And my birth father is just my biological kin. And even that short period of our communication showed that he was a stranger to me. A mental stranger. But he was sure that since he was a father, he deserved respect from me simply by the fact of our kinship.
We didn’t communicate for long. One day he asked to speak to my mother. I told him that it was impossible (my mother really didn’t want to communicate with him). When he heard me say no, he got angry, started yelling at me and telling me off for something. I calmly listened to him, said goodbye, and hung up. Later I sent a message that the tone of our conversation did not suit me and that our communication was over. Although it was sly on my part, because I was already so tired of his calls that I gladly took advantage of his breakdown to avoid unnecessary communication.
