Loving Communication: Sending & Receiving Messages

a reply to: BO XIAN
I'd prefer to be loving and emotional and not some odd robotic humanoid in a relationship thank you very much.

originally posted by: argentus
a reply to: BO XIAN

I like to say "I think........" because it takes responsibility and also it expresses my opinion AS an opinion. I'm not saying it's a FACT..... I'm saying I think it.

My Darlin' and me have various "break" words. We don't fight, but we disagree sometimes. If it becomes heated, either one of us might say "mango time", which always breaks the mood and also cracks us up. Then, after we've had a lovely mango beverage, we usually settle down to a more calm talk about whatever was bothering us. We have a few keywords that have evolved over our 26 years of marriage.

It works. For us. Thanks for the thread.

Thanks for your kind words and your great example of a wonderful communication strategy in the relationship.

It reminds me of an old Reader's Digest story--paraphrased from my memory.

The tired family were returning home from a great but long week at the lakel--with the boat on the trailer. The boat had to be backed into the driveway beside the house to the back yard.

The wife kept saying to the husband as he began backing and continued the task:

"Watch the mailbox! Watch the mailbox! WATCH THE MAILBOX."

To which, of course, the husband persistently replied: "I am!" "I SEE the mailbox!"

. . . . followed, of course . . . by the inevitable:

!!!CRUNCH!!! of the mailbox.

On another day, after a long tiresome day trimming limbs or cutting the tree down, the wife was fairly high up in the tree--tired--with an electric chainsaw, IIRC, extending unsafely her reach . . . and the hubby said:

"I see the mailbox!"

Without any retort, the wife climbed down out of the tree and they concluded the day warmly and safely. The tree could wait for another day. I think your "mango time" is a wonderful way to achieve similar results.

Thanks tons for a valuable contribution to this thread.

originally posted by: Tiamat384
a reply to: BO XIAN
I'd prefer to be loving and emotional and not some odd robotic humanoid in a relationship thank you very much.

My puzzlement is

THAT I DO, TOO.

And no one who has ever been around me in face-to-face relationships would ever think or even hint that I was the least bit robotic.

Usually, they'd be happy if I was at least a little closer to the robotic end of the scale! LOL.

Many folks find me toooo UNrobotically intense etc. in my style and communications.

I do wonder if your perceptions might be somewhat skewed by your life experiences maybe narrower perspective.

Uhh BO XIAN, no. I would prefer a human response. Something a human would say. I guess what I'm getting at is something in between "lifeless robot" and "pornstar". But at this point its all just nitpicking, anyway. I understand the idea you want to convey.

a reply to: BO XIAN

Glad to contribute to a communications thread. I don't pretend to have any of the answers. I know what works for us. When either of us is gone from the house and the other is at home, when the returnee comes inside, we have a private whistle. It lets the other know who has come into the house.

Those non-verbal communications evolve over time. They save time and save problems. I know that if my Darlin' and me are at a gathering and either of use draws a line with a finger from our forehead to our nose, that person wants to go home.

Some couples almost develop their own language over time. Whatever works. These are the things that draw us together; commonly shared words and jokes and themes. It's the good stuff that occurs between everything else. It's the stuff we will remember when our days are done that define us.

Tiamat384 separated at birth, perhaps?

originally posted by: CagliostroTheGreat
Uhh BO XIAN, no. I would prefer a human response. Something a human would say. I guess what I'm getting at is something in between "lifeless robot" and "pornstar". But at this point its all just nitpicking, anyway. I understand the idea you want to convey.

LOLOL

Actually, there's quite a few of the women at the college I last taught at--who'd be delighted to put it just that way--or more crudely.

Yeah, I think there is an overabundance of nitpicking. LOL. That's OK. I'm a recovering perfectionist, myself. LOL.

How about

"Hey, baby, I'd love to hear some specific people incidents from your day. They help me feel a lot closer to you, when you share them."

Many men, if the woman fails to include "specific people incidents" will only get something like: "It was fine. The people were OK." End of discussion.

The woman has to clue the man into what kind of thing he might think of to share.

BTW, GROUP--this is NOT a 'one size fits all' sort of thing. Sigh.
LOL.

a reply to: argentus

THAT'S BRILLIANT--the nonverbal stuff--finger from forehead to nose to leave a gathering etc. Wonderful. Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, such stuff takes time to develop. A lot of folks just never think to 'go there.'

A lot of folks fail to realize that all of us have some creativity to fan into a flame.

It sounds like you have a wonderful relationship. CONGRATS!

I assume you realize how rare such quality relationships are in our era.

CHEERS!

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat
It would appear to be so. Nice to meet you, err brother. *Hopes is right*

a reply to: BO XIAN
Hehe look who's talking of a "narrower" perspective...

While I see what you're trying to say overall... the examples you have given, I will agree with others, sound terrible. Almost as though you're translating from another language; which if that's the case, I apologise! But otherwise... it does sound terribly robotic and not words that would naturally form.

When my partner walks through the door after his workday, I greet him, ask him how his day was, he'll either say it was fine, good or terrible - if it was terrible, well, what made it so terrible? What happened? Have a normal conversation! Haha.

If he walked in the door and I greeted him with "Hey, I would love to hear about specific people events from your day today, I feel closer to you when you speak of these things with me" he'd probably accuse me of being a dirty synth.

But overall I get where you're coming from, just, people would probably need to convert such ideas and sentences into something more meaningful and "organic" for themselves and their partner.

a reply to: kaelci
I love that reference! Not a new synth huh?

a reply to: Tiamat384

I left a word or so out of this sentence by error:

I do wonder if your perceptions might be somewhat skewed by your life experiences maybe narrower perspective.

should have been

I do wonder if [as in IF] your perceptions might be somewhat skewed by your life experiences toward maybe a narrower perspective.

I said that because I've gone to some lengths to accommodate your input and reply about where and/or why I don't feel it's quite accurate.

Every time, you've come back with the same very narrow--rigidly narrow perspective.

Ahhhh wellll you are certainly entitled to it. I do hope it doesn't cause you trouble.

a reply to: BO XIAN
You hold a rather narrow perspective, I simply hold a human one. To each their own they say, but then they say a bunch of things. But no, my perspective is not narrow.

originally posted by: kaelci

But overall I get where you're coming from, just, people would probably need to convert such ideas and sentences into something more meaningful and "organic" for themselves and their partner.

OF COURSE! THAT'S true!


LOL.

Sometimes my RN wife would join me in helping out with a family therapy session and they'd ask her to translate what I'd said. LOL.

Nevertheless, most of my word choices and phrases have a reason behind them. And often, [not 100%] that reason has been tested somewhat extensively--in real life and real relationships.

a reply to: Tiamat384

I think, like beauty

that "narrow" is in the eye of the beholder

as well as their particular unique vantage point.

You hold a rather narrow perspective,

Strictly in communications terms, THAT PHRASING is and those word choices are very rigid and narrow.

It is an emphatic declaration as though absolute objective fact. It casts your perspective as absolutely true--implied more or less regardless.

This one:

I do wonder if your perceptions might be somewhat skewed by your life experiences maybe narrower perspective.

includes a sizeable number [for one sentence] of open ended, flexible, broad-open qualifiers:

--"wonder"
--"if"
--"might"
--"somewhat"
--"maybe"

FWIW.

a reply to: BO XIAN
Alter your viewpoint to a mountaintop rather than a cave. Just a suggestion. And no the phrasing isn't narrow. You seem very anti statements.

My mother was a psychotherapist and my father was a psychoanalyst, and this is how they communicated. I got used to watching this and I thought it was normal.

Later out in the real world, I was shocked to find my husband had no idea how to communicate this way- it took us years to get good at it. I found out very few people around us know how to communicate like this, in fact. I don't know if it i because they are french or not.

But I think it left me somewhat socially handicapped- I am overly sensitive and easily offended when people act brutish and uncivilized in communication. I see absolutely no reason or benefit to the sort of hostile exaggerations most people use, and without being precise, I not only do not understand what they mean to convey, but have no idea how to respond.

For me, all exchanges, even if they begin with an opposition or conflict, have for goal synthesis. Somehow, both are trying to reach a point of mutual comprehension and respect, some sort of meeting place, agreement or convergence is being sought. The precision is needed to fidn the ways we can weave them together.

I think now, with age and experience, that a whole lot of exchanges in everyday life do not seek that at all- many people seem to have a taste for conflict, opposition and hostility and cultivate it through their modes of communicating.

-Reading the others' responses in the thread, I find it curious those who feel that communicating this way sounds robotic- I have heard that before, as if a very obvious effort to come together is assumed to be lacking in emotion.

Around me I find people who prefer hearing "HEY! What is your problem? Are you CRAZY or WHAT????" -they claim that feels more emotional than
"I need to tell you, when you do that, I feel you are being insensitive and not conscious of my presence. It hurts my toes when you walk on them, and I feel angry."

You know what I think gives that feeling of emotion or not? In the second statement, the speaker objectifies and accepts responsibility for their own emotions, instead of just projecting them at the other. Like holding out a cup and saying "this is my cup", instead of just throwing it the head of the other.

Surely the other will feel the impact of the thrown cup more.... but do you need to feel the impact so strongly?
Does that really give value to the relationship?