Tag Archives: communicate

Dreams – Silent Friends

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In one of my dreams last night, I was helping move chairs with someone I used to spend a lot of time with. I was going quick and carefully tossing the chairs near her. At one point she freaked out about how I was moving the chairs. I tell her to relax, it’s not like I’ve hit her yet, and I laugh. She stays stern, gives me an angry look and goes silent.

She’d been like this with me since I’d met up with her again. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time. So I asked her what the problem was. I said we used to be friendly with each other. She scoffed and told me we weren’t friends. She told me she was constantly doing stuff for me and giving, and I wasn’t.

I immediately turned defensive, confused, and sad. I asked her why she never said anything at the time. I didn’t realize that was how she felt or that things might have been that way. She told me she shouldn’t have to tell me things like that. I should have just known to give back equally.

I told her I obviously thought I did at the time. Friends are supposed to feel like they can talk to each other if things aren’t right. She told me again we weren’t friends.

If only all dreams could be so depressingly meaningful.

Next time you’re wondering whether or not to say something because you don’t want to make a big deal about it, consider that you might be making a big deal about it anyways. I think not saying something can fester and ruin relationships more than saying something. Your feelings can fester and surely will effect how you interact with that person. Before you know it, maybe you resent them so much that their obliviousness is no excuse.

The dream is right about one thing, if you can’t talk to me about how you feel, then we aren’t actually friends. I really would like to think the people I keep close will let me know what they’re thinking and feeling, even if it’s not something that’s pleasant to hear. I would like to think they’d let me know before the friendship was over.

A Creep?

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Every now and then when I need a break from work, but still want to feel productive, I do things like clean up my desktop icons or go through and organize my bookmarks. Tonight I was going through bookmarks and I came across the link for an ex’s blog. I forgot I had it. Funny thing is, for the most part, I wrote in my blog extensively while we were together. He didn’t post anything in that time period it looks like.

Mostly his blog is about pickup and self improvement (which I guess for someone in PUA they might tell you they’re the same thing). There weren’t any recent posts, but there were a few from a few weeks after we broke up. They were him trying to get back into PUA and being… well… unsuccessful and creepy.

The thought has occurred to me lately that even though I didn’t initiate that breakup, I’m the one that came better out of it. Even though I’m not going out with anyone, I get the impression I have my shit more together than he does. I think I’ve had more success in being with new people since then. I don’t mean that pick-up style, I mean that just meeting new people. I’m certainly not being the desperate, creepy one.

I think that might be part of his and some other people’s problems. The obsession and focus of meeting the preferred sex for finding a mate is going to make you come off in a particular unattractive way if you let it consume you.

1. You think you need it.

You don’t need to get laid. You don’t need a boy/girlfriend. Life goes on. Great things happen either way. People who think they need it will give off the desperate vibe. The desperate vibe makes a woman feel creeped out, unsafe, and not special at all. I too have fallen into this trap, and I know it doesn’t come off as a good vibe to guys either (at least not the ones you want to attract).

2. It’s your number one motivator for meeting, talking to, and getting to know people.

You only talk to them if you think they might be your type. At the mention of a boy/girlfriend, you’re not interested in communicating with them any more.

This is what I told one of my friends: he may not be your next boyfriend, but what if his brother or best friend is your soulmate? Friends are very valuable to life in general. They can also help you find that next someone. There’s nothing wrong with just making friends.

This also is a problem in the way you approach people. You can flirt without using crappy pickup lines. If you’re smiling a bunch, using good body language, being interested, asking questions about their life, etc., you don’t need to say something like, “Hey, nice shoes… wanna f-“.

I think openers are stupid. Sorry, PUA people. They are. They are just alternate phrasing for crappy pickup line. They’re not any better. Try some genuine, off the top you’re your head, not creepy, real world conversation starters. Walking up to some random person on the street and calling them cute is a no. I’m sorry if someone who uses that is reading this and being offended, but someone has to tell you before you get maced. You may hate me now, but thank me later.

3. You’re approaching it as a player in a game rather than yourself.

As I got to know what PUA was, I didn’t gain much respect for it, and this is one of the big reasons. I love games. You might even call me a gamer. However, meeting people is not going to be won with cheat codes. I don’t care how many books your read, lines you put together based on those, or methods you use. To find someone lasting, you have to put your actual self out there (that includes to meet good friends and significant others).

Are you only interested in shallow acquaintances? Awkward lays? Maybe those lines could work for you then.

I guess the big question is: who are you and what do you want?

I’d like to find someone worth sticking my neck out for again, but I’m in no hurry either. There are a lot of great connections to be made with people out there without expecting them to be the next anything. I want to have fun. I want to meet people. But… I don’t need anything from these people. I’m comfortable here with myself, by myself both growing and existing. I don’t need another half, because I’m already a whole. One day I’d like to meet another whole person, a partner who fits me well, but I know it’s not going to happen by any kind of force.

Communication Technology

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So, people have a hard enough time with regular socialization skills. Now with all the tiers of communicating, it’s a wonder anyone can keep up. It’s not just technology to master, otherwise geeks would be super-pro at socialization.

First there were people communicating at social gatherings and work.

Then there was phone.

Now there is *deep breath* AIMPhoneMSNICQCellPhoneMySpaceEmailFacebookBlogRTSTextMessageForumMMORPG *another breath* -you get the idea. You figure this would ease communication. We’d be super in touch with everyone all the time. No. Because there is no way someone is going to call you to tell you something important if they can text you even if you disabled text messaging because you’re either dirt poor or got sick of getting texts of “hi :)” (or both). Even though you told them in person that you blocked texting, they forgot and they don’t like talking on the phone. They’d rather enjoy Olympic button pressing and staring at a post-it sized screen for 5x the time it would take to say what they needed to. They scoff and think that if you really cared to keep in touch with them, you would enable texting so that you’d get that one important text out of 500. And don’t dare ask them to email you, because that’s *totally* not the same thing.

I once had a boyfriend who argued with me on the phone until I downloaded an instant messaging service to talk to him. It doesn’t matter that we had cell phones, texting, and SKYPE (back when you could dial out for free). This was his most comfortable way of communicating, so I better adapt. On some level, I can understand. You can minimize the other person, don’t need to listen to their tone of voice, can play your RTS or MMORPG, have both hands to type unlike a cell phone, and they don’t know if you got up to get a bagel or pee. On the other hand, we were kind of trying to be emotionally intimate. One other advantage of online messaging is that I still have logs from these chats. That’s what I need… a record of how much I don’t stand up for myself. Hindsight is supposed to at least be softened by memory, and here I have a .txt file showing how pathetic I can be.

Sure, check your email, but make sure you have your FacebookMySpaceLinkedInRandomNetworkingThingies configured to let you know when someone sends you a message on one of these websites. But usually, you can’t read it in your email. I go into my email, see I have something on facebook, and in facebook go to my wall or my inbox… TWO separate methods of communication in ONE networking tool that tells you through email.

Woe onto you who have more than one email. I have two… one that I have had since… before it was cool. The other I got in college and has forums for jobs and places to live and alumni and dialogs on campus and stuff for sale and calls for art. It also has instant messaging built in too… so instant messaging services open and go into your email with yet another instant messaging service and texting on the cell phone in your pocket that can also ring… I’m sorry if I haven’t got around to checking my other email in awhile.

We’re not at the sad part yet. Want to know what the sad part is..? I’m part of a generation who is used to it. Sure, I set my boundaries. I’m on facebook. I’m not getting MySpace too. I’m not enabling texting for the pope- if you’re at your cell, call me!

But I’m used to it to the point where it is ingrained in me as a socializing solution to my communication shortcomings. That’s right, I sometimes look for even more alternate forms of indirect communication… Sure, I could turn around and say something to the funny and good looking guy in my IT class who I’ve thought was pretty cool since the first class (even if he does have a girlfriend but who cares it’d just be nice to communicate). Or, instead risking getting giddy and giggling like an idiot, I’d could go run, cmd, net send…

But the instructor set his boundaries. Thou shall not abuse net send or I shall disable it. Don’t make me do it.

And then people started writing batch files that sent net sends by the hundreds… and logged into other computers with remote desktop to say ‘it wasn’t me’… and flirted using poetic computer based metaphor (Oh, wait, that was just me… and him… as far as I know).

It’s ridiculous, and I realize it. I looked myself in the eye reflecting in the monitor and made a decision.

I asked for his cell number in the parking lot. *cheers* Score one for the communication revolution! At some point in the future, we will hang out and communicate outside of class- in person!

…now I just need to call it …and stop giggling at everything he says to me in person. Yes, even I- currently rated number three most confident on the compare people face book application of all my facebook friends who also have said application- can get shy. (see documentation above)

With all the additional ways to communicate and keep in touch with people, it’s true, we still don’t know how to communicate with other human beings. The opposite sex… oh, forget about that. This isn’t Star Trek you know. We don’t have the technology.

Follow up posts:
Communication Revolution: Quashed!
Wednesday Night