What is love?
It was valentine's day yesterday. Did you notice? Or did it pass you by like a gust of ephemeral wind, carrying old condoms and plastic bags in a spiral dance through the air?
There seems to be an explosion in conversations around love recently. Maybe it's just where I'm looking. Under every rock I lift there's a little man serenading me in hopes of a hug and a slice of lasagne. Sadly, the lasagne is not for him.
One of the biggest issues I find when it comes to love is communication. How good are we at communicating effectively with our partner? Do we shut down and prefer not to share our inner most thoughts in fear of appearing vulnerable before another? Do we overshare and expect our partners to solve all of our problems for us? Are we silent in our anger, or do we throw plates into a sink whilst screaming into the impenetrable void? Do we cling on to their transgressions with an iron claw, allowing our grudges to fester, or do we let things go?
We’ve all got our own style. I want to move away from the traditional ideas of good and bad communication, and split it out into two distinct categories - direct, and indirect. Both have their merits, and both have their flaws.
Direct is fairly obvious. Say what you see. This has its advantages. We're transmitting our thoughts and feelings into the world so that nothing is hidden. There's nothing obscure or hidden between the lines. The issue with direct communication, perhaps, lies in our delivery. How are we transmitting our message? What's our tone? Are we employing empathy, or are we throwing it out into the world like a grenade, not caring who catches it because "our thoughts are sacrosanct"?
Direct communication must always be tempered with empathy. There is a danger in being too direct, where we fail to take into account the other. Communication is bidirectional. It requires a minimum of two participants. If we aren’t considering the person that we're communicating with, we aren't communicating; we're broadcasting. There's a very significant difference between the two.
Indirect communication, on the other hand, requires a little more effort on the part of the recipient. We’re relying on action over words. In a way, we’re speaking in metaphors, through our body language, or our silence, or our outbursts. How your partner interprets this will be solely dependent upon their own empathy and understanding of you.
Perhaps our storming out of the room is a desperate plea for attention, and perhaps what our partner perceives is us being stroppy. Perhaps our silence is waiting for the other person to fill it with validation, but what they’re seeing is us not wanting to engage at all. Perhaps our sulking is an expectation that the person should know us well enough to understand what’s wrong, when instead they see us as being obtuse and difficult.
We may be communicating to the best of our ability with the skills that have, but we must also reflect on how we’re communicating, and if this may be misleading. This is far easier said than done when emotions are high, or when we’re afraid of being vulnerable, or when anxiety creeps upon us like an arctic wind.
Whatever type of communication we prefer to employ, we must try to avoid presuming that the other person knows what we’re thinking, and we must stop believing that we know what the other person is thinking.
If we haven’t communicated a thought or idea, then we must assume that the other person doesn’t know. We must let go of expectations, and remember that the person we’re dealing with is just as flawed and human as we are. This is all about empathy.
This is where I’ve fallen down many times in the past. Immediately jumping to a presumption as I’ve gazed through the prism of my own prejudices. I’ve overlayed my experience on to the other person and, much more often than not, got completely the wrong end of the stick.
Ultimately, we need to offer some sort of guide to our partner to help them navigate what we’re feeling. Whether we favour the direct or indirect approach, we must strive to approach communication with empathy.
What is love? An honest, vulnerable, reciprocal connection with another.
Much love,
David