The Importance of Communication...

It is no secret I am not a fan of texting.  So much is lost in the ease of communicating through short, brief, often misinterpreted words.  I feel we have lost the plot about the fine art of communication.  Words used to mean something, they were important and matched with behavior.  Now it seems to me, the world is divided.  Words meaning one thing and do not really ever match behavior.  Or at least, not matching up enough to provide a feeling of safety.

Where did safety go in our communication?  When exactly did we stop communicating true intention and desire to show the people we are communicating with their value to us and in our lives and our desire to provide a safe harbor to them in the wide sea of life and living?

I was talking to someone the other day, we were discussing dating.  I know, what else do I seem to discuss?  The demise of love, I talk about that a lot too.  I mean, I am a divorce lawyer...it is a preoccupation as well as an occupation. 

Anyway, this person was telling me how much she wanted someone to connect up with her in the morning and the night.  And that this connection made her feel safe.  Now, I thought that receiving a text message in the morning and the evening was barely a connection, and not really safe since the person sending the texts is likely sending the same texts to various people.  But she was adamant it was what she wanted.

And it made me think...how much receiving a one line, throw away text message gave the impression of intimacy without really providing actual intimacy...

And it also made me think of how often, I myself, have allowed this “communication” to be evidence of something greater than it actually was.

I think what we are all looking for is to be valued, cared for and considered.  A text message can accomplish this but it isn’t the best way, and certainly not the only way.  It feels like relationshiping has become so strategic.  There are timelines and rules and I am really not sure how anyone ever gets together these days.  And how in this crazy dating world, anyone can feel safe.

I want to spend hours lying around talking to the person I am dating.  Not about us, but about life and living, books they’ve read, trips we want to take, or did take.  I want to spend hours of time getting to know how they think, what they feel and how they show up in their lives.  I want a relationship that exists in some other time and place I think.  I want something from some other place where there were no rules and we were all just winging it.  Where we spent time, face to face, talking and then time on the phone discussing life and our evolving relationship.  I want a text free relationship.

I am not the world’s best communicator.  I get overwhelmed by events and have too much going on and drop lines of communication.  This is why I have shrunk my social world down because I cannot sustain 25 relationships at once anymore.  I have a few close friends, my family and am not actively dating.  Online dating makes me crazy because I cannot handle the volume of possibilities.  And it is impossible to weed through the many choices, so you just default to this question, answer format that takes weeks for responses and is just stupid.  I hate it so I am not doing it anymore.

I do not want a place filler. I do not want a date Saturday night.  I want something where true communication exists and is the whole point.  I will completely admit at this point, I have lost the plot.

What I have realized recently that communication, a true desire to send off who and what you are, and to receive the same back from another is really intimacy in action.  We communicate to increase the knowledge and interest in this other person.  And my major issue today is that no one wants to spend the time. And for the life of me, I can’t tell if it is that they are just not interested or just so jaded that they are defaulting their lives and love away in stupid text messages that communicate nothing but the promise of someday...

A “good morning, beautiful” text does not communicate safety, exclusivity or interest.  It communicates ones ability to take the most basic action.  A “hope you had a great day” text does not communicate a true desire and interest in you, it communicates the ability to send a one line text to preserve an avenue for connection they may decide to pick up later.

I am tired of pretending that any of the above passes for anything other than place holding.  And I do not want to be place held.  No thank you.  And equally, I do not want to place hold.  I want to show interest and I want to do that through communication.  Face to face is preferred.  FaceTime is better than phone.  But texting has to be banned, it is just too easy to default to.  And this presents a problem for me, because I hate talking on the phone and way prefer texting.

I know, I know, what the fuck?  But I, too, am part of the problem.  I get why we are all drifting apart and allowing throw away texts to pass as communication; it risks almost nothing and in today’s world it is passing for communication.  We have to stop, or I swear texting will be the end of intimacy and connection.

True communication takes time and effort.  And that is something that is totally lacking in today’s dating world, hell the world at large. We all want what we want instantly and we don’t want to have to put forth a great deal of effort in the process.

Again, still...

If we want to see the fabric of our relationships change, we have to be the architects of that change...

Again, still...