I find myself in a relationship right now that has a lot of miscommunication. However it is strictly one-sided. It’s all on my end. I keep creating awkward situations that result in personal vexation my cohort is utterly oblivious of… at least, until I no longer handle it and snap, lashing out at my friend’s fabricated mistakes.
It is a situation I’ve honestly found myself in often when it comes to meeting new people, and it wasn’t really until now that I realized what was going on. Essentially, I become so wrapped up in making the other person happy, that I don’t end up communicating my needs and wishes. I become so concerned with his opinion of me, that I decide to put on gloves I don’t usually wear, and find them painful. I end up putting extraneous restrictions on my behavior to protect a meaningless entity: baseless opinion.
I begin to let my false perceptions dictate my behavior, and then draw even more false perceptions. The cycle is vicious and continues until my actions become so misaligned with reality that they are deemed crazy. Usually this is the type of cycle I’d allow to repeat itself endlessly until I destroy the relationship: “crazy is as crazy does”.
Not a single part of this is a fault of, nor dependent upon, my friend. My friend could be anyone, and I’d make the same stupid recursive decisions. Luckily, I recently found a friend who was in touch with the situation that he showed me a path out of my personal valley of destruction.
I don’t know if he’ll end up reading this, and I don’t know what he’ll say if he does. What I do know is that I feel better about the situation, that I feel like I’ve learned something important about myself. And that I now know how to adjust my own behavior to prevent this sort of self mutilation in the future.
The key is through transparency and honesty. Communicate your ideas, hopes, and wishes. Don’t hold back—play your game while you play his. If you get so excited over his game that you forget your own, well, you’ll end up not having any fun.
