How much do we talk every day? How much of those words are actually spent on legitimate communication? How much of it is just space/time filler? What qualifies as communication?
I've recently realized that I have little to no patience for people who refuse to be open and communicative. I'm tired of trying to pull teeth. If someone wants to tell me something, they should tell me. Out with it! Spit it out. Tell me what's on your mind. Ask questions. Don't beat allllll the way around the proverbial bush, and wait for me to glom on to some morsel of information so I can rip the actual crux of the situation from you forcefully.
I'm not going to do it. I just refuse. I used to spend my life always asking everyone who was important to me "What's wrong? Are you ok? Is it this? Is it that? Are you angry with me? Did something happen?" Fuck it. I'm not doing that anymore.
If I sense you have something to tell me, or that you need to talk, I will ask you ONCE. I will put myself out there, I will say "Hey. Are you ok? Do you need to talk?" If your response is "I'm ok here are some space/time filling words that mean nothing (but by the way please please please try to tear the actual problem out of me look here it is but noooooooo I'm not going to tell you what's going on!) blah blah blah." I'm going to smile and nod and walk the fuck away.
I have my own life full of people and places and things that require my attention. I have my OWN stuff going on, that also requires my attention.
If you want my attention (this is the general 'you', not anyone specific. Ok, maybe YOU...), then you need to put yourself out there and accept the potential consequences of your actions. Strong, silent types aren't going to get anywhere with me, because I just don't have time.
It's probably easier said than done for a lot of folks.
ReplyDeleteNot everyone was raised in an environment that fostered open communication and some were in situations that made lying a survival skill.
Those are hard habits to break even in the best of friendships or relationships. Trust is a great safety net, but it's occasionally a double edge sword as the more someone has faith in another person the more they fear losing them because of their own personal issues.
There's also the martyr syndrome for some... for some reason there seems to be a lot of "oh, it's my problem, I can't possibly confide in anyone, oh woe is me." For years was guilty of that, I viewed as some kind of duty that I had to bear any burden silently on my own because I thought it was noble. Which was complete bullshit because it allowed me to never directly confront my problems because I was afraid to do so.
I guess the best thing to do is to try and suss out the intentions behind it and make judgment calls based off the motivations behind specific instances of non-communication. Maliciousness and deceit are not to be tolerated. The inability to deal with their hangups for being uncommunicative as no skin off your back.
You're right. Life is too short to go around grabbing people by their shoulders, shaking them and begging for them to just say what's on their mind.