My Struggles with Communication

I've never been comfortable with communication. Funny then, that I'm a writer, but I seem to be a mess of contradictions. My tongue has a history of betraying me. I learned early in life, that I would likely not get my point across through basic speech. I dreamed of being mute, so I could write down all my conversations.

When I try to speak, my brain runs circles around my tongue, erasing words I had intended to use, leaving me hanging as I try to recall what I had wanted to say, second guessing every line so that I stop speaking in mid sentence as I try to come up with a better way to bring my point across, or backtrack to start again from the beginning. I often stammer as I try to ignore the distraction of my brain telling me I'm "saying it wrong". I still cringe when I recall a time my former boss asked if I could work the following day. I said something like "Yes I think so no I guess not wait okay yes I will I mean no well maybe okay."

I've developed a few strategies to cope with this problem - I speak rarely, I think hard first before speaking and get it straight in my mind so that when my brain plays games with me, I'll feel more confidant in ignoring it. Most importantly, I am learning to relax. Today I went to a meeting with a woman who is helping me in my quest to become a companion sitter. To my happy surprise, she told me I am "well spoken". I guess that means I'm learning.

I always assumed that writing would be an easier way for me to communicate. I'm finding that isn't necessarily the case. New difficulties have sprung from attempting to communicate through emails and chatrooms. With one person, especially. Ironically, he is the person I care most about, the one I want most to communicate with properly. I spent the first year and a half of our friendship burying him under weighty emails that were so long they resembled novels. After spending all my life as "the quiet girl who rarely speaks", I discovered I have a lot to say in writing. Somehow, the act of letting my mind flow over all my thoughts and opinions and beliefs, while my fingers clicked away on the keyboard, was incredibly freeing for me. I practically turned myself inside out, until finally, he very kindly asked me to shorten my emails just a tad. I hadn't realised my emails were so overwhelming, until I re read some of them and understood his point.

I've discovered that writing is, in some ways, a very poor substitute for communicating through speech. Uncomfortable as I am with speaking, I now have to admit that it has its place. If I have had an exhausting day at work, for example, and want to describe the masses of dishes I had to wash, and the fact that it was raining as I walked to work and home again, and the way my feet are aching, I could write all this in an email, but it would be awfully boring to read. Especially if I did it more than once (I learned this the hard way). Now if we were face to face, I could communicate my exhaustion simply by heaving a great sigh as I plopped down onto the couch. My wet hair would show that it was raining. I could say "I never want to wash another dish!" - this single sentence would convey the fact that there were a lot of plates and cups that I had to wash that day. I could then pull off my shoes and socks and massage my feet - which would show that my feet hurt. All of this would be communicated with a few actions, and one spoken sentence.

The chatroom is another place where I'm learning that written communication isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm not a big chatroom user, but I do enjoy my little msn room where I visit with the friend mentioned above. I sign in there nearly every day, as does he. We don't "chat", though sometimes we have hours long conversations that get pretty crazy. Some of our nicest evenings have been when we didn't say more than two words to each other. We're simply signed in, and each works on their art. Maybe after an hour, one might ask a question, or comment on something, then back to companionable silence again. I liken it to sitting side-by-side in the library, it's very cosy.

I've had to relearn some communication facts since I first started meeting him in our chatroom. I used say 'Hi! How are you?' every time he came in. I believed it would be rude not to acknowledge the fact that he had come "into the room". I had this impression of myself sitting in a room alone, the door suddenly opening and my friend walking in. What kind of a person would ignore the arrival and just continue with their work? Finally he explained the fact that it can be disconcerting to hear a "Hi!" the minute he logs onto his p.c., as though he wasn't alone in his house. I realised then that I was viewing the whole chatroom thing completely wrong. I was using the rules for face to face communication in an arena where everything is opposite. I needed to learn a new language, so to speak.

There are a host of other examples - smilies are a big one. I like to use smilies after sentences that might sound cold without the smiling face attached to the end. Or to make it clear that I'm joking. Or when I'm momentarily speechless but want to convey that I'm thrilled with something just said to me. But smilies can be very annoying. Used too often, they can make an intelligent person appear silly and immature.

Another difficulty is timing. I might, for example, want to finally relax after hours rewriting my wip. My friend and I may not have spoken for an hour, but I see that he is still signed in, so I flash off an inane comment as a way to let off a little steam. He, meanwhile, is deeply immersed in his writing. He hears the msn sound that announces I've said something, loses his train of thought, clicks two seperate boxes to bring up our chat box from behind all the work he has open on his monitor, only to see that I said something trivial. Of course I didn't mean it, but I've now succeeded in making myself a pest. If we had been face to face, I would have been able to see that he was busy, and I would have kept quiet.

He is more than patient during all of this, as I am with him, but the truth is, too many mistakes like these can cause friction and bad feelings. Saying "goodnight" is another difficulty for me. I would feel awfully rude to just sign out of the chatroom without saying 'goodnight'. It isn't a problem if we're in a conversation, and I finally say I'm off to bed. But what to do if we haven't spoken for an hour or more? I can't see myself getting used to the idea of just signing off without a word. Again, I run into the question of timing. If I can't see that he's busy at the moment, I run the risk of making a pest of myself, when all I wanted to do was say a polite 'goodnight'.

I've been thinking about this subject a lot this past week. Things have a way of churning in my brain and making me obsessed. I think my conclusion is that there is no perfect way to communicate. As with every human interraction, there are endless flaws and pitfalls. Or maybe I'm taking this whole communication issue far too seriously....

Even this blog entry brings with it a risk of my being misunderstood. I guess I could just play it safe and delete the whole thing. Or take a chance and post it....