frames

Zhang Enli, Landscape, from the Spring/Summer 2014 issue of ARA

On the phone we were saying that I’m kind of like a soup dumpling: the skin is cool and dry, but when you bite in it gets hot and leaky. I used to feel embarrassed by this, like I was somehow misrepresenting myself by going through the world in my measured, opaque, even-tempered way, when really I burn quite hot. But once I started thinking more about frames I realized that it was more of an issue of containment than misrepresentation.

For years, my goal was to find a way to coexist with my sensitivity without detaching from it. My current manner of interacting with other people and with the world around me was born out of that: a set of mannerisms and behaviors that allowed me to be authentic without causing undue damage. We each have a “frame” like this, informed by personality, social contracts and feedback from others: how do you make eye contact? How do you make small talk? What questions do you ask on a date? How do you leave a party? How do you give feedback to a friend? How do you ask someone to hang out? How do you gossip? How do you deescalate a fight? The rules and regulations you internally set for yourself, consciously and subconsciously, are your “frame.” I think of it as a series of agreements with yourself and other people.

I know that there is extant usage of the word “frame.” I’m using it a little differently: I think a frame is not your worldview, but how you functionally act. I find that this makes it easier for me to understand situations where, for instance, someone is extremely harsh and unpleasant at work, but very patient and loving with their friends and family. It’s not that one is their “real” self and one is their “fake self.” They have different frames for each, because they simply want to show up differently in different situations.

Frames are the behaviors we adopt deal with the social, emotional, and moral dilemmas we all face in everyday life. And they exist individually as well as between people. I gave a talk about friendship on Sunday and someone asked me about male-female friendships and the sexual tension that can exist in them. My answer, which I did not do a good job explaining, was “frames.” Friendship is a frame that two people can hold, and as long as both people are committed to it, I generally believe that it’s not a huge problem if one or both people experience attraction.

The “frame” of particular friendship might be something like: we text each other fairly regularly, we get dinner at restaurants or we go on walks, we split the bill, we talk about feelings, we do not have physical contact with each outside of hugs. And obviously with a category as ill-defined as friendship frames can vary hugely between people, but I think that’s a pretty standard one that holds true for a lot of male-female friendships. Basically, we have a contract for how we behave with each other, and we both honor it unless/until it needs to be renegotiated. The failure case, of course, is that you simply can’t be friends with someone who isn’t interested in maintaining the frame. One particular behavior that really annoys me (a “red flag,” as they call it) is when someone verbally says one thing and then acts in a very different way. Like, they say, Let’s be friends, I understand you’re not looking to date anyone, and then they take you to a very romantic restaurant and pay for dinner. And then suggest sitting on a park bench and try to place a hand on your thigh. It’s like—hey, I can’t maintain this frame all by myself.

I generally see “relationship types” as frames. Friendship is a frame, boyfriend/girlfriend is a frame, marriage is a frame: a set of agreements between two people on how they act towards each other. Of course there are people who are anti-frame (I believe this is called relationship anarchy). I think it’s generally really difficult to forgo social frames because most people expect and need consistency. For instance, it would probably really upset most people if a close friend talked to you really intensely every day for two months and then suddenly switched to talking to you once a month without warning. Frames are functionally how you’ve agreed (either with yourself or with another person) to operate in society.

Similarly, it would probably be pretty weird for you on a personal level to have no agreements with yourself. You could be terse and unpleasant one week, then garrulous and warm the next (and some people certainly behave this way…), but I wouldn’t say it’s best practice. I don’t think frames are the same thing as identity, but if you want to maintain a super consistent frame I think it is helpful to absorb it into your identity (for instance, I’m someone who answers emails right away).

The best gift you can give both someone else and yourself is often a good frame, evidence that you are reliable and consistent over a long period of time. Everyone in the world in a relationship wants to hear I will love you with the same consistency and intensity 20 years in as I do now. But for that to be believable coming out of someone’s mouth they have to strike you as disciplined person. And discipline, in my eyes, is a frame issue.

Think of the person you a) most admire and b) actually think is a good person. I’ll bet that they are some combination of kind, generous, humble, hardworking, responsive, dutiful. And sure, maybe God or their parents made them that way, but I would posit that they’re also that way because they have a set of agreements with themselves about how they show up in the world that’s a combination of how they naturally, intuitively show up as well as how they want to show up.

Perhaps one way to understand frames is through the lens of sublimation. For instance, you might be an intensely competitive person, but your friends might find it weird if, say, you throw a chair against the wall after losing at poker night. Instead it might be beneficial for you to channel your competitive energy into being really good at jiu jitsu. A frame is how you express who you are practically in the world. It provides structure for your impulses and emotions.

A lot of problems are frame problems. People pleasing, for instance—your frame is often at odds with your actual interior experience. I think a good frame should be supportive and protective without being in conflict with your lived experience. Similarly, relationally, you should try to make sure that the frame you share with another person is mostly in accordance with how you actually feel about them.

I have a lot of charismatic friends and sometimes when I watch them interact with other people the word that comes to mind is “bit.” Like, okay, here’s that bit you do while you make eye contact in a particular way while ordering coffee. There’s that bit you do where you ask someone you just met an invasive question. It’s fun to analyze it—so often what seems like magic is just a learned behavior. But how someone acts is also inextricably linked to their essence. Just because you can decompose it doesn’t mean you can do it.