Archive for the ‘communication’ Category

February 17th, 2010 By Tony Posted in Committment, Relationships, communication, friendship

You Gotta Have Friends

How is it that one can look at someone who is supposed to be a friend and think, “What an ugly person?”  How is it that one can look at a person with whom you have been friends for a long time, and suddenly see a stranger instead? Would you laugh or cry?

Without going into detail, I am currently estranged from a long time friend, and I am damned if I know what I am going to do about it. I chewed the ear off another friend, to whom I admitted that I am sorely tempted to let the whole fucking friendship go down the gurgler. I am thinking, “Enough already!” In fact the only feelings of love for my friend that I harbour are of the violent kind. If I gave you, my faithful readers a graphic description of those feelings, would you not think, “Where did Tony go?”

The whole issue of love and friendship is such a huge bug bear for me. I take close friendship seriously, I feel them rather deeply, and I have staying power.  Too much sometimes, me thinks. Though with this particular friend, I’m not sure I want to stay. That makes me sound like a callous bastard I know, and as one friend asked me, “Is this friend really worth all that trouble?” Well, inspite of everything, of course I think my friend is worth it. All my friends are worth it.

I’ve survived far worse fallouts, and I’ve gone back and fixed them all up. Ask Mountain Man, he will tell you. He has seen me at my worse, and still had room in his heart to forgive me. Then again, as he said to me this past weekend, “We survived because we talked, we had it out, and we moved on.” Yeah I agree, however, I just am not sure I want to fix this one though. Don’t know why. Maybe it’s the effort required. Yes I know, I am contradicting my earlier assertion that all my friends are worth it.

Sure I fucked up big time, but then again so did my friend. Not as big as me, perhaps, but still. Well my friend is fucking up now! That balances it out! I am sick of making all the first moves, sick of opening up my heart while my friend plays the academic, and sick of making myself vulnerable, all for the love of a fucking friendship.

This estrangement [close friendships are like love affairs], where I witnessed my friend as a stranger, was one of the many eye-opening experiences I have been having these last few weeks.

In my writings about letting go, moving on, and personal changes, I have been so intent on the “observable” and external [conscious] process and pace, anxious that change happens, that I have ignored the inner and less obvious [the subconscious] metamorphosis that has been occurring.

I was sitting at the dining room table, with The Scarlet Tiger and The Angel of Cuddles in Angel’s flat, on Monday 11 January, 2010 [of course]. We had just completed a fotoshoot, finished dinner, and we were relaxing over a glass of wine.  I was watching them as they conversed, and I felt a wave of love ripple across my face. A love with no rhyme or reason. It just sprung up and out from within me. Was this unconditional love, I’m still not sure, but I do know, that it was a love devoid of ulterior motives.

It was a eureka moment. A moment that I was not quite prepared for. Thinking about it now, I am not sure what that portends exactly, but it is a good feeling. It is opening up the road down which I have longed to travel. One where I am free to be myself, free to love who I want to love, and free of the burden of expectation.

Meanwhile, do I miss my friend? In spite of all that I have said? Fucking hell I do!

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December 30th, 2009 By Tony Posted in Relationships, The Midnight Rambler, communication

19th Communication Breakdown: Blah, Blah, Blah!

As I write this, I am still getting myself into trouble, over the way I communicate online. Last Sunday, as I spoke with Joshua, last night, as was pointed out by The Scarlett Tiger, I need to watch my use of emoticons and the way I phrase thoughts, and again this morning by The Angel of Cuddles, who said that I ought to watch the intonations, emoticons, phrasing and context of what I say and read.

It’s not that I disagree with what they have to say, it does make me stop and think about the assumptions that I bring to the communication table, and the assumptions that they bring to the communication table. Whether we agree or not, one person may have an issue with how I communicate using text, while someone else won’t. That is unavoidable. But I do listen to Joshua, My Mountain Man and The Scarlett Tiger, for example, because we have an ongoing dialogue, so there is trust there.

Sure, the responsibility for clear communication lies with me, as much as it does with other people. As Joshua also pointed out to me last Sunday, English is a second language for some people. However, even when English is the primary language, problems still arise.  That’s why we use emoticons in cyberspace, sure, but as I said, it is assumed that everybody knows what each emoticon stands for, well I don’t.

I don’t use emoticons much, and sure they are handy, but try finding an appropriate one, or learning them all. That’s why I end up using question marks and exclamations marks a lot. Those who use them prolifically, assume, and I do mean assume, that everybody else understands them as well as they do. Worse though, are the intonations of what I say online. Not paying attention to how I phrase my thoughts, cause some people to take offense or misconstrue what I say.

Communicating via text online can become quite a chore as you have to make decisions about whether to type full English sentences, use your full fluency, or simplify or dumb down the language, abbreviate, go with typos, use emoticons that one person knows and not the other, adjust tone, intention and intonations on the fly, as well as accommodating the each individual person I am talking to. Even face to face communications has its pitfalls, but I am not going to wade into these shark infested waters.

One of the biggest flaws in my online communication, is the assumption that my friends and people I know will understand what I am saying, by virtue of the fact that they know me or have a close relationship with me. Yeah, I know, sometimes they do get it and sometimes they don’t. However, as My Mountain Man pointed out, you can’t see the face, or the body language, which will clarify what I am trying to express.

Meanwhile, as we continue to take each other to task over breakdown in communication, I keep hearing the unmistakable sounds of the words, pot, kettle and black, but that is quite another story that I do not want to go into. I just hate the finger being pointed at me, knowing damn well it should be pointing the other way too.

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