Tag Archives: communication

female cowardice

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I am both saddened and elated to have had another guy confirm this afternoon my own experiences with female cowardice. This happened at the grocery store of all places. He noted that I was buying a lot and that I must be the cook in the family. I returned that while I enjoy cooking, this wasn’t all for me. He then, without prompting, lamented about his recent experience with a text breakup, lucky guy. He seemed in his late 20’s/early 30’s.

I’m talking about dating and the apparent immaturity and/or lack of communication skills in a wide age range of women.

Some time recently I had met someone once for brunch and I thought things had gone well and we even made plans for a second outing. Alas, she backed out claiming fatigue from medication. I tried again the next day to communicate. No returned phone call or messages. No problem. People are working and busy and just give it some time. And yes, I’m still this naive. As seems the norm to me in the modern, and older, woman in this case, the method of lack/loss of interest is the silent treatment.  Now I’m presuming this person lost interest. In truth yes, they may have met someone that very evening and was swept off their feet or got scared with a ‘younger’ man or ran away to join the circus, hopefully not because of me, but I find those options unlikely. Not being interested is not my issue. If it was that easy, people might want to date instead of dreading it.

But why this behavior? I just don’t get it and it makes me a little angry. It’s not even a face to face rejection/let down. That’s a real adult and mature situation. In an age of text messaging and online sharing people seem to be less connected and more impersonal. The online dating process by itself is based on pictures and words and written conversation until they choose to take it to the phone or a meeting. What is so challenging about even saying “Thanks but not interested” by an online or phone message? The only thing less impersonal that I can think of is this silent treatment these women are so fond of. Perhaps their experience with this growing up leads them to think it’s an appropriate adult behavior.

I still can’t believe that I’m coming to terms with the idea that where once I would have become angry with a text message response, I would relish some form of communication, even a text message. Do these women lack so much in their lives that a simple very impersonal confrontation is beyond their coping/life skills? I had hoped in the past that it was reserved to a certain age group of women and that I would be fortunate with someone older and more mature to be able to handle open and honest communication. Alas, again, I have been proven wrong. I do not believe most men in general are wells of confidence overflowing thinking they are gods gift upon the earth. We carry fears as well. Is this a general female method or specific to the women I, and the gentleman at the store although he got a text message, have had the unfortunate luck to meet. I can only hope for this to be a specific group.

These experiences have not been without benefit however. They have weeded themselves out. Not only have they saved me time, money and effort, it reinforces my belief that a quality woman is that much rarer and should be treasured. It brings up the notions: One man’s junk is another man’s treasure and Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some men might not want an intelligent and confident woman. This one seemed fine. Attractive, traveled, educated and teaching at the university but taking time for research, not an easy task. During the one meeting she seemed confident in herself. Perhaps misdirection and deception are skills while practiced by magicians might be second nature to women who may have had to learn these behaviors growing up to deal with other women or previous men in their lives.

Mars and Venus continue to be unaligned and I continue to remain baffled.

-SFA

 

EDIT: Unsaid but true, men are not immune to this issue as well. I am not immune to this issue and something to work on.

Love is a battlefield

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I was listening to the radio and I heard this song. It got me thinking, I know a dangerous habit. Is love a battlefield? Is it a place/time of conflict and strife?

How often do we see a couple fighting and we say or think to ourselves that it shouldn’t be like that? Yet we find ourselves in similar situations. Although I don’t think it truly happens don’t we want the rainbows and sugar sweet happiness? Does anyone actually enjoy battling constantly (this is a real question and rhetorical at the same time since I think yes, there are people who seem to enjoy it).

In my relationships, and these don’t have to be romantic ones, conflict is exhausting. I don’t have the time or energy to be fighting all the time. I’ve heard from others talking about their romantic relationships how great the make up sex is after a fight but I think I’d be a fan of just plain ole’ ‘you turn me on i want you sex.’ Perhaps that’s archaic now as an idea. I don’t understand. Is the fighting the attraction? Is that the turn on? Is the non-conflict time with that person boring and uninteresting? Just throwing out the idea.

A common idea in the majority of my life that can’t help but resurface now is the idea of communication. How much is missing when all these fights are going on? The time and energy that could be saved from actually taking the time to talk and try and understand each other. No it doesn’t always work. When I feel someone is nagging I start shutting down the brain and the emotions kick into overdrive. Sometimes the emotions out balance the intellect. Hopefully the little voice inside can show up just long enough to remind you to chill out and give communication a chance.

We impose our state of mind/being onto our world. That’s a given to me. A mind can only be so open and still be a part of the world. If you were too open I think you’d be a vegetable all day just thinking or not thinking as it were. We have to have a certain level of prejudice in our lives, and no prejudice doesn’t have to be a negative (‘bad’) word. It means to pre judge, make an opinion, without the knowledge or experience. I’m certainly not so enlightened that I don’t pre judge everyday. But hopefully if I do and I learn from it, I won’t pre judge in that situation but now make an informed decision that still might piss someone off but now with a good reason!

Getting back, we should be doing more talking TO each other and far less talking AT each other. Hand in hand though is the idea that we have to do far more listening and less just hearing.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

p.s. I’ve been writing in my moleskin journal and will working to transfer some of those ideas back into my online journal here.

benefit of the doubt

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We hear this phrase often. We teach it to kids. It’s in the legal system. We give the defendant the benefit of the doubt, presume/assume a well intention/innocence before thinking it is a bad intention/guilty.

I keep hoping one day that this idea is actually taken to heart. I’m not talking about full blown naivety and trust everything that people say and do. We aren’t that enlightened. I think it’s fine to take someone at face value to start with and using questions, experience, or other evidence, get a better sense of what is going on. What I am saying is that why do we constantly presume that what was said or done was ill intentioned before even trying to see it another way? I think sometimes I live with my blinders on too much trying to see the good in people. I try but other people sure make it a lot harder to KEEP them on.

Now with a random person you play it by ear as above. You take what they say and you pass it through your filters. We do profile and stereotype people. We do it each and every day to each and every person we meet. But we can still keep an open mind.

This brings me to another thought. The people you know. I’m not talking about the people you see every so often or just say hello to. This is for the people you see outside of work. You call or text or email or go to events with. Those people are probably even friends.

So what bugs me and I have a hard time understanding is why those people, assuming you are worth trusting, will assume something you said or did was with malintention instead of stopping for a moment and saying, “hmm.. this person is usually nice. maybe i misunderstood something.” Of course this goes back to other posts and thoughts that in general people suck at communication. But now I wonder about these people and sometimes I feel really bad for them. Have they had a life and continue to have this life where maybe they can’t trust people? Where they were wronged so many times or so deeply that they choose to no longer want to see good?

Recently I asked someone that I thought trusted me if they were planning on coming to trivia again. I have a group of friends I go with frequently but we were going to be taking a break for a few weeks. This someone has been once. Just once but expressed an interest in coming back sometime. The following are my message and the response I got back.

ME:”honest question: are you ever planning on coming to trivia again? just asking to know if I should tell you when we aren’t going to be there.”

THEM:”Honest response: you don’t have to invite me to things if it is irritating.”

I didn’t think I had said something bad. And yes, while I do see that I could have worded it differently, I thought my intention, whatever their perception, was clear in what I did say. I didn’t want this person showing up and finding out we weren’t there. If others read this and think otherwise, I’d like to know. From my end the kicker is that I don’t think I ever treated this person badly before or lied or ever was intentionally rude. And although I tried to say these things, alas I have not heard back yet.

It does bother me thinking that this person’s first response was to assume I was irritated with them. I try and be open and honest with people and continue to realize people just aren’t able to handle it. Unfortunately, I have a hard time not being honest. You try and think good about others and you forget that other people may not think good things first.

I had a similar honesty situation also recently. (I have a lot of these in general by the way. I’m just pulling these two out.) There was a potential opportunity to catch up with someone and I voiced an honest concern. The immediate response back was a presumption that my honest thought was a recognition or perception of a problem instead of the actual statement I made of being aware that issues might come up.

Why and how to people go through life like this? This automatic assumption that people, including those people you know and hopefully trust, are meaning something bad when they talk to you. Do a certain degree I really don’t understand it. I’m actually trying to and it’s frustrating. If you try and keep an open mind about the possibilites in life, how do you then go about closing your mind? Like many people I know in my heart that there have been times I have been accused of something I didn’t do. We all know that pain inside, I hope. That idea that you know you didn’t do it or say it and now the situation is getting out of hand. Maybe at some point the truth surfaces and people try and apologize or make amends.

It’s that type of situation that SHOULD force people to try and keep an open mind afterwards. Maybe what you perceived as an angry or hurtful statement from the person you are communicating with didn’t really mean you thought. How much heartache could be saved if we just took a few moments to stop and ask what they really meant? That best friend of yours… the one you got angry with… if they are normally saying rude and mean things, then sure, they probably did again but if they are almost 100% of the time nice and pleasant and they said something you thought wasn’t nice and pleasant then I implore you to react in a new way.

STOP

DROP (THE CLOSE MINDED THOUGHT)

LISTEN (WITH AN OPEN MIND)

Those few seconds of pause might mean the difference between the real meaning of what they said and weeks of anger. I’m not saying they didn’t slip from 100% with their first mean words. They may have. But if you have that open mind added with your experience maybe they are going through some deep shit so bad that they lashed out. If you stopped for that pause and thought, “this isn’t like this person. maybe there is something else going on,” the world might start becoming a better place and you might start becoming a better person.

So no, I will probably not try and become close minded again. I will continue to try and stay open minded and honest to myself and others even when they don’t know what do with it. I will continue to hope they people won’t always look for a deeper meaning in honest/truthful statements. I will continue to stay frustrated not understanding why people (especially the ones I care about) will presume a negative meaning instead of pausing to review any past interactions to see if they make sense with what they know from before. I will continue to hope that one day one person will read one thing I’ve written and be changed for the better.

May we seek the divine within us to become more enlightened.

Namaste.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

 

male simplicity, n=1, part 1 of ?

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  1. *****
  2. it’s ok to ask a guy out. you’re not a slut if you do. i personally find it sexy.
  3. if i’m seeing you and continue to do so, i’m attracted to you. if i’m not, then i’ll say something.
  4. if you aren’t attracted that’s ok. just say so. my momma said i’m a big boy now. don’t just stop calling or emailing as your method of communicating. besides just being utterly rude, that’s low-class. while it would be nice of you to do this in person to show that you are mature and can handle an adult relationship, a phone call is still ok. that still takes a lot of balls for a lot of women. a text message or email isn’t ok. here’s a tip. be honest. i actually want to know why. it helps me to grow as a person.
  5. just because i haven’t tried to kiss you or get you into bed in the first two or three dates doesn’t mean i don’t want to. see #3. sometimes there are more important things in meeting someone.
  6. if you consider me opening a door or giving you my arm archaic and it bothers you, i think we’re done.
  7. big girl panties don’t have to be granny panties. they can be that lacy thing you picked up to make you feel stronger and more sexy. self-confidence in women, not the same as arrogance, can be very alluring.
  8. if you think me paying on the first date robs you of some special female power, i think we’re done. if you want to split the bill to not feel ‘obligated’ to anything, fine by me. if you think there will be a date two, i can pay first and you can offer to pay second if you want.
  9. i don’t have the time or energy or frankly the desire to plan each and every outing. if you need an alpha male to control your world, i think we’re done. if there is something you want to do, say so. if we’re swapping turns, thinking about planning it out too.
  10. i’m flexible in my thinking. it might come across as indecisive at times. i probably would be happy with indian or italian or greek or mexican or american or whatever as long as it isn’t something i don’t like but i may be able to find something i can eat at that place. if you don’t really care, i can pick something. if you do care, say something. if you don’t say anything then, don’t bring it back up in a week as a ‘problem’. i will either have forgotten or i may be bothered that you may not have good interpersonal skills. that is a problem.
  11. actually try and bring up problems as they occur in real-time. i might even be able to say why i said or did something that might make more sense to you and clear things up before things get out of hand. we teach parents to discipline/punish their kids at the moment of an incident, not hours later, “when dad gets home”. they may not remember what happened or what they were thinking at the time. then they feel like they are getting punished for no good reason. men sometimes feel the same way.
  12. maybe people are more flexible to being changed when they are younger. i have a better idea of what i want and don’t want with someone. lying about yourself or what you want isn’t going to help. it’s going to hurt. then i won’t trust you. that’s bad. i value honesty. if i believe you care about me, then i’ll try and hold that in mind. maybe you are telling me something to help me out. that’s good.

basically you can boil this down to the one listed below. it’s even simpler. ready for it?

#1: be honest and open with your communication to me and with yourself.

simple but challenging for most people. miscommunication sucks. try this open and honest route. it saves time and energy on both sides. if you get angry at what someone told you, stop. they can’t make you angry. you made yourself angry. take a look inside for a moment and see if you can figure out why. it might be you.

Hoping to have a bag of presents at any apocalypse,

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

 

VD, not that kind or maybe it is

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What would today be without some of my words of wisdom…

As usual, unless you are fully happy being single, this is a day to be bombarded by media and family and friends with the idea that you are still single and why haven’t you produced any grandchildren. As I had been with someone recently I was fully looking forward to it this year. I had a surprise peri-Valentine’s Day day scheduled at Ten Thousand Waves (a japanese spa) that thankfully I was able to cancel and not lose any money. It’s more awesome probably than any other time of the year for me to think I would finally have someone for Valentine’s Day. You almost remember that you aren’t alone. But alas that was not to be.

One could argue that I should use this time to be bitter for not only not having someone for Valentine’s Day but for the way that it ended. But I actually think there are things that I have to thank her for and must continue to keep in mind now. Simply reinforcements of things that I’ve known on what I need and what I want and truthfully what everyone should really have. The thing that shocked me most at the end was the (simple) lack of communication and possible lies. One moment two people talking about the future and then the without warning that future is shut down.

I think many people would agree that during a relationship if the two people have been talking about their concerns and problems and it still ends, at least they did talk about them and tried and hopefully won’t be caught off guard at a sudden ending even if it doesn’t feel pleasant. All too often these days people choose not to effective in how they communicate with each other. Communication is dealt with through (in decreasing order) face-to-face interactions, phone conversations, emails, texts or in some unfortunate cases simply ignoring that there is an issue and walking away from it. At least I got an email even if there was no true explanation and I am still left wondering what happened. I have gotten the ignoring treatment as a breakup method in the past. Immature and possibly very cowardly in my opinion for anything other than face-to-face.

We generally take this as an opportunity to figure out (ie beat ourselves up) what we did to cause the end. How we screwed it up. However one must also accept the fact and idea that we did nothing wrong and nothing that we did or didn’t do could have changed the outcome. Sometimes it really is the other person that isn’t ready and not yourself. You must constantly keep that in mind. Don’t let something like this break your self-confidence. Remember you are worth it. We question ourselves. We question why we’re even in relationships. We wonder if we’re good enough for them. We wonder if we’re just not better alone.

As I said in my quote the other day, it’s not always necessarily the person that I miss but instead those feelings inside. That sense of belonging with someone. That connection with somebody. Being lost in their eyes and when they look back at you, you feel like the two of you are in your own world. The electricity with each touch. It’s those feelings that keep us coming back time after time, punishment after punishment.

Pain is interesting. Emotional pain and physical pain share special characteristics and we tend to forget that. If you cut yourself or someone steps on your toe you feel that physical pain. We don’t say that someone is making you feel that pain. It is your own. So why do we treat emotional pain differently? I also would argue that someone else also doesn’t make you feel that pain either. While not linked to sensory nerve conduction, it still hurts like crap inside. A visceral pain inside the chest. You think your heart is going to burst from pain. You also own this pain as well. It is yours to feel and manage. You get to choose if you want to be hurt or not in this case. Remember that next time. You are in control. They don’t control you.

Sex can also become a variable in a relationship. While there could be an argument about it being too soon in a relationship one of the biggest concerns that I would have in any relationship is that while it is an important part of a relationship for some people it should not be the most important part. If sex is the linchpin in the relationship, as the only thing holding it together, that relationship will probably fall apart. Constantly there must be communication. There must be open dialogue. These people must understand about each first before anything else.

*anyone have a suggestion for a symbol of communication. thinking about a microphone or airwaves for now*

As much cynicism as there is about Valentine’s Day in its commercial value, it can also be used sorta of like Thanksgiving as a reminder day. To keep in mind those people in our lives be they spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, grandparents, children, whoever. There are always people to love in our lives. And we are loved by others, even when we forget about them. I could wish like many other holidays that people didn’t see the materialism behind this. The diamonds were not a part of this until the commercials arrived. The chocolates that melt and add calories, the flowers that wilt and die, the dinners that cost a tidy sum, the once a year sex or special sex and all the things that people expect again as a symbol of love when the symbol of love should simply be, Love.

Those three words said too often and often not enough can be quite powerful when said at the right moment. Telling somebody “I love you” has consequences. It should never be used as a weapon. It should never be used to buy you time. It should really be what it says, I. Love. You. No blog entry could be long enough to get into what love is. We each have our own version of what we think it might mean.

One thing that people should also keep in mind is not only should you be loving the other person but for your own sake try to remember and, especially if you’re single, take this opportunity and this day to love yourself. You should be number one in your life. What happens to you should matter. Your needs should be important. If you are starting to date someone making sure your needs are being addressed. That is also very important. While I find that I’m malleable in my likes and personality, if you are trying to change yourself fundamentally for the other person in a relationship I can’t imagine that it would actually last for the long-term. Your must have your needs addressed in the beginning otherwise how can you know the two of you will be good together. How can it last? Why not consider waiting till you been together long enough before you think about starting on compromising.

I close this with one quote.

“To thine own self be true.” – Polonius

-Santa’s Fallen Angel, waiting for Cupid’s arrow only if she gets the same one