Communication versus Consideration

[impressive]

Two thoughts on this subject.

From Dr. Phil: Relationships are negotiated and you teach people how to treat you. I would add some people learn better than others and both parties have to be willing to negotiate.

From my Father: Good husbands aren't found, they're made.

To Dr. Phil: But there are many methods of teaching, and the pupils must be willing to learn. My preferred method of teaching is by example. I treat people how I want to be treated. It is FAR from a guaranteed method, though, and often results in me feeling like I'm always giving, giving, giving to the point of exhausting myself emotionally.

And to your father: You can't get blood from a turnip.

Thanks! Ya made me smile. That's an accomplishment tonight.

 

[impressive]

Coming in really late here, and I haven't read the entire thread, so forgive me if the topic has completely morphed by now.

For me, the response to my needs from someone else really doesn't mean that much if I have to spell it out for them. The boundaries are different in each relationship, but when I get to the point that I question whether that person really knows me at all - OR - I begin wondering that I simply don't matter enough to motivate them to react/act/move/feel/respond/provide then my line's damn near crossed. I try to consciously recognize that the envelope is being pushed. I then make that very thing clear to the other person. If, at that time, there is not some kind of cataclysmic misunderstanding revealed or some mountains don't begin getting relocated (even a pebble at a time), I'm out.

For me, it's all about feeling understood and worth the effort.

We are much alike.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

We are much alike.

I need a little less talk and a lot more action. ~ Toby Keith

 

[lucky-E-leven]

We are much alike.

Now I'm reading back a tad bit, and it kind of grates on me that people are sometimes so huffy about the whole 'mind-reading' thing. It's not about an expectation to have your mind read. It's about someone else shutting up long enough to listen, watch, and learn what makes you tick. It's about not always talking about it, but doing something ... ANYTHING ... just to see if it's on the mark. It's a wonderful part of relationships, to me. A crucial part, really. The need to know someone so intimately that were they never able to utter another word, I'd at least be able to glean a starting point from the look in their eye or the expression on their face. Why do we strive so damn hard to build a life with ONE other person if we do not hold them to the standard of making it their business to know us better than anyone else?

 

[MagicaPractica]

You can't get blood from a turnip.

Too true! I've met a few turnips in my time...

 

[Lee Chambers]

Hmm. The non-desperate times are almost MORE important, aren't they? There are plenty of people around that you can "inconvenience" in an emergency. It speaks to a level of trust, I believe ... and of commitment.

Thanks.

I would say so. In an emergency, you can go to almost anyone and get help, depending on how bad the emergency is. But in those times where it isn't a life or death situation, but still something of great personal importance, true friends will be there to help you.

 

[impressive]

Now I'm reading back a tad bit, and it kind of grates on me that people are sometimes so huffy about the whole 'mind-reading' thing. It's not about an expectation to have your mind read. It's about someone else shutting up long enough to listen, watch, and learn what makes you tick. It's about not always talking about it, but doing something ... ANYTHING ... just to see if it's on the mark. It's a wonderful part of relationships, to me. A crucial part, really. The need to know someone so intimately that were they never able to utter another word, I'd at least be able to glean a starting point from the look in their eye or the expression on their face. Why do we strive so damn hard to build a life with ONE other person if we do not hold them to the standard of making it their business to know us better than anyone else?

Tell me how you REALLY feel.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Tell me how you REALLY feel.

I would, but you already know how I feel. I never really had to post, did I?

 

[Guest]

The Eyes of the Poor
by Charles Baudelaire

"Ah! You want to know why I hate you today. It will undoubtedly be harder for you to understand than for me to explain: for you must be the finest example one could find of female impenetrability.

We had passed a long day together which had seemed short to me. We had promised each other that we would share all our thoughts, and that from now on our two souls would be as one: -not a very original dream, after all, even though it is dreamed by all men and achieved by none.

In the evening you were rather tired, and wanted to sit down in a new café on the corner of a new boulevard still covered with debris, which was already displaying its uncompleted splendour. The café was sparkling. The very gas shone with the eagerness of a newcomer, lighting up with all its strength the walls that blinded us with their whiteness, the dazzling surface of the mirrors, the gold on the mouldings and the the cornices, the pages with their chubby cheeks dragged along by dogs on a lead, the ladies smiling at a falcon perched on their fist, the nymphs and the goddesses carrying fruits, paté and game on their heads, the Hebes and the Ganymedes with arms stretched out offering little jars of sweetmeats or an obelisk of multicoloured ices - the whole history, the whole mythology, in the service of gluttony.

Right in front of us, on the roadway, stood a worthy man of forty-odd with a grizzled beard: he looked tired, and held a little boy with one hand, while on the other arm he carried a tiny creature too weak to walk. He was their nursemaid, bringing the children out to take the evening air. They were all in rags. The three faces were strikingly earnest, and the six eyes stared at the new café with the same wonder, but subtly differentiated by age.

The father's eyes said: How beautiful! How beautiful! How Beautiful! One would think that all the gold in the world had been brought here for these walls. The eyes of the little boy said: How beautiful! How beautiful! But this place is not for the likes of us. As for the eyes of the tiny one, they were too fascinated to express anything other than a deep and utter joy.

The cabaret song tell us that pleasure makes the soul good and softens the heart. The songs were right that evening, as far as I was concerned. I was not only touched by that family of eyes, I felt a bit ashamed of our glasses and our decanters, much more than our thirst required. I turned to look at you, my love, in order to read my own thoughts; I plunged into your eyes, so beautiful and so strangely sweet, into your green eyes inhabitated by caprice, inspired by the moon, when you said to me: "I can't stand those people, with their eyes like wide open gates. Couldn't you ask the manager to get rid of them?".

That's how difficult it is to understand each other, my angel, that's how incommunicable our thoughts are, even between people in love."

WOW.

thats deep.

wow

 

[Guest]

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Now I'm reading back a tad bit, and it kind of grates on me that people are sometimes so huffy about the whole 'mind-reading' thing. It's not about an expectation to have your mind read. It's about someone else shutting up long enough to listen, watch, and learn what makes you tick. It's about not always talking about it, but doing something ... ANYTHING ... just to see if it's on the mark. It's a wonderful part of relationships, to me. A crucial part, really. The need to know someone so intimately that were they never able to utter another word, I'd at least be able to glean a starting point from the look in their eye or the expression on their face. Why do we strive so damn hard to build a life with ONE other person if we do not hold them to the standard of making it their business to know us better than anyone else?

There is only one rational response to this: Will you marry me?

 

[Alessia Brio]

I've been letting this one percolate around in my brain for a while.

I try very hard to communicate the big things that are important to me from the start of any kind of a relationship. Things like "Don't lie to me," "Don't give me the silent treatment," and "I will leave you if you tickle me even once" are things I say explicitly and early. Ground rules never hurt any relationship.

On smaller stuff, I try to give as I get. I know I have friends who forgive me my irritating habits, and so I make and effort to do the same for them. Friends who show disinterest in following through on plans together get relegated to the status of "It's nice to see you twice a year, but I'm not bummed if I don't see you at all this year" out of self-protection.

Yeah, the "Don't lie to me" is huge for me ... in any relationship. Your other "big things" aren't "big" to me.

Thank you, beautiful!

 

[rgraham666]

I'm big on not lying myself. Keeping track of your story can be such hard work.

On the other hand telling the truth to the question, "Do I look fat in this dress?" is not something I ever look forward to again.