Afraid of people

I figured out this morning over breakfast that my father is afraid of people.  Somehow I didn't realize this before.

It explains one of his persistently irritating habits, namely, looking for an explanation of everything you do – usually a reductive explanation, as if you were a simpleton or a machine.

• This person acts like this because he's religious ... and my dad makes a lot of noise when he finds someone who professes some religion but not the way my dad thinks he ought to.  My aunt is Catholic but taught her daughters to use birth control and said she had nothing in common with John Paul II or Benedict XVI.  That's not how my father learned that Catholics are supposed to behave, so he could never figure her out. 
• That person acts like that because of some unresolved childhood trauma.  It couldn't possibly be because he just felt like it ... there has to be something pushing him.  Unless he makes the same choices my father would make, of course.  Then that's normal. 
• And so on.  It's really kind of demeaning, when he asks you – in all sincerity – "Oh, do you think that because of ...?"  Even my mother doesn't like it.

The point is that we explain things we are afraid of.  We never bother explaining things we enjoy.  Nobody tries to "explain" a Beethoven symphony, or I hope they don't.  But people in the past worked hard to explain earthquakes and lightning and comets, so that they could reassure themselves that these natural disasters were not actually signs of divine anger.  Explanation lets us put a hedge around things, ... allows us to put them in a box.  So they aren't scary any more.  And that's what it feels like when my dad starts to try to "understand" you – like he's putting you in a box.  But if he's doing it out of fear, then maybe I can find room in my heart to feel sorry for him rather than angry at him.

This thought explains too why he always strives to dominate every conversation, to keep it lively, to keep people laughing, to avoid silence.  As long as people are chipper and laughing, they aren't a threat (I suppose).  As long as they are animated, they probably pose no danger.  But when they fall silent?  My father interprets silence as anger, and it makes him intensely uncomfortable.  I've never understood why silence should mean anger, but it surely means unpredictability.  Someone who is silent has time and space to reflect.  When he speaks, he might say something real.  You just don't know what's going to come next.  If you are afraid of what he might say, it could be scary.

I suppose it's possible I'm reaching too far, but I like the theory because it explains so much, so economically.  Maybe I should ask him some day?  It would surely rattle him if I did ....