If I put my hand up and blow a kiss,
it’ll never make it to you.
It’ll go down over Kansas like Icarus,
sink like Amelia’s last SOS.
–McKinley/Icarus Over Kansas
Most days, I wake up with a song running through my head. Often it’s just a line from a song. It’s a different song each day, usually. Some days, one gets stuck there for a few days, and I start listening to what it is trying to tell me. Usually, a song is like Freud’s cigar. Just a cigar. By the time I get to work, the song has disappeared. When the same one comes back several mornings in a row, or when it sticks around all day, maybe the cigar is a sign that there may be something more complex going on.
Oh, I know. Everything is a complex with me. I know. I know. Believe me, I know.
When this particular song got stuck in my head, I didn’t have to think too hard about it. I know exactly why it’s in my head. It’s because I’m trying to communicate with someone with a very different communication style than mine and I’m frustrated. Sometimes that’s just how it is with certain people. If you are like me, you turn it over in your head and try to make sense of it. It’s particularly challenging for me if the problem is a lack of response. I have a hard time talking in the first place. If someone doesn’t respond, it leaves too much room for my sick inner core to interpret the silence. Sick inner cores never interpret a silence in a positive way, either. They’re rat bastards.
The trouble is, if you’re a neurotic and over-analytical person with not a lot of self-confidence and a really good imagination, you can spin a silence in all kinds of ways. Some of them may even be accurate. The trouble is, with a silent person you never really know. It’s utterly pointless to try to figure out why someone isn’t talking. Only they know. So I make all sorts of valiant efforts to mindfully yank my brain back to the present when I catch myself at it, but it’s a lot of work. Plus, honestly, I kind of like inventing the theories. It’s fun in a self-defeating sort of way. That may be part of the reason I’m writing so much. It distracts me from imagining all sorts of theoreticals. I do it for everything. It’s a disease, I’m sure.
This is what my brain looks like on hyper-speculation overload. You may need to avert your eyes if it gets too graphic:
Maybe you talk too much so they stop answering because you need to just shut up.
Maybe they don’t stop answering because you talk too much, maybe they just need to process things more slowly than you do.
Maybe they don’t care about it enough to answer.
Maybe they do, but they are the kind of person who is uncomfortable talking about…anything.
Maybe what you’re saying is boring.
Maybe they don’t know how to tell you to change the subject so they’re just ignoring you until you go away.
Maybe they didn’t get your message.
Maybe they’ve already told you what they think a MILLION TIMES.
Maybe they died.
Maybe they are a dick.
Maybe they are busy.
Maybe they have a very ill child who requires all of their attention right now.
Maybe they had a stroke, and would love to reply and can’t because they can’t type or talk any more.
Maybe they’ve been kidnapped by aliens or Somali pirates.
Maybe they think they already answered.
Maybe they are embarrassed because they waited so long to answer.
Maybe they hate you.
Maybe their spouse deleted all the messages on their account and they don’t know you’ve written.
Maybe they ignore all first messages and only answer if someone sends another because they are creeps.
Maybe you should just take a deep breath and get a life, because you are worrying about this WAY too much!
I can do this on an Infinite Maybe Loop if I don’t stop it. When I stop it, it leaks out in songs ear-wormed in my brain. This is one of the downsides to creativity that people don’t talk about. I also have a special gift for imagining conversations that will never happen. Maybe I was meant to be a playwright or screenwriter.
So, if you care about me at all, don’t stop responding to my calls/texts/emails and the like without letting me know why. It makes me strain my assumption and speculation muscles, and they’re over-worked as it is. When someone is also prone to taking things personally, as outlined previously, it can potentially result in temporary insanity. Or permanent inanity. Either way. It might be a simple as “hey, I need to think about that, or “this is uncomfortable for me, can we talk about something else?” At work, “I need to check a few things and get back to you” is an option.
Or even “fuck off, psycho.” I’m flexible. Please note that “fuck off, psycho” is not recommended if you are a co-worker wondering how to communicate effectively with me. Try “screw you, nutcase” instead. Human Resources would probably find that a preferable term.
There are a lot of reasons words might just fall flat. I try to keep in mind that there might be perfectly innocuous reasons for it, but really? Most of them point at me, rather than the non-responder. Generally speaking, if someone wants to respond or if it benefits them, they will. If they don’t want to, they will not.
So then what? That’s the part I don’t quite know what to do with.
There’s something about what I’m saying that someone either doesn’t want to respond to or can’t bring themself to for whatever reason. What do you do about that when it happens? Mostly what I do is try to do nothing and then either try again, let it drop, or get annoyed and blow up. That doesn’t work very well, and I am not quite psycho enough to keep trying the same thing over and over when it doesn’t work.
So. Yeah.
When the desired level of communication is so drastically different, can that be fixed?
Maybe not.
There’s got to be at least a little bit of cooperation in order for people to get along.
I have many questions.
Not so many solutions.
None that are collaborative, which would be ideal.
Much like not taking shit personally, you can’t make people behave the way you want them to unless you’ve got some sort of motivating hook.
Maybe ice cream or coffee would work.