Can’t we talk???

With respect to the article, “Can’t we talk???”:

Yes, we sure can talk, however it’s different thing altogether to communicate. From what I observe, our actions and words are backed by lots of complex thought processes which form our intention, for example when the wife asked her husband whether he’d like to stop for coffee, her intention probably was ideally both of them wanted coffee so they could happily get a coffee each, or even if he doesn’t want a coffee he would wonder whether she wanted coffee and ask for her preference. No matter how right or wrong our words come out, the intention is there. Despite the different approach men and women take to express themselves, their basic intentions couldn’t be too far apart, we are essentially still primitive humans. However this intention could be lost to miscommunication, misreading or crude prejudice, giving us waves of bad emotions, as demonstrated by the wife in Tannen’s article, she fumes when her “intentioned” preference was ignored.

Tannen’s many interesting anecdotes all have one thing in common, the couples misunderstood each other, they failed to catch the real intention! It may be easier said than done (I’m gonna say it anyway). Once we are able to grasp the intention, there is basically no worries for miscommunication. Categories or no categories, men and women are hardwired differently, that’s why it’s “men and women”, not “men and men” or “women and women”. Even women and women could miscommunicate, despite the fact they can talk on and on, nonstop. Therefore, intention is thee important thing to take note.

In a mutual relationship, the two people should at least be on the same frequencies to be able to understand each other. In an intimate relationship, they should be able to read each other’s thought pattern, speaking each other’s minds, do something before the person asks…..that is the chemistry an intimate couple should have (ideally). Once this chemistry is there, there isn’t even a need to verbally communicate anymore, just brainwaves would be more than enough, this might just be what we say ‘two become one’?

That level of intimacy is very likely to be difficult to attain, so we laymen and women still end up in heated whirlpools and meaningless quarrels. From a ‘man-ish’ POV, this poses as a challenge, therefore I offer my solution, which is: the more we fail at communicating, the more we do it, until we stop failing :) yay. From the ‘women-ish’ POV then, I come from the need for support, sympathy, intimacy, feelings and understanding, i would probably try communicating in another form, singing is good. Guess we will just have to trial and err until we come to an equilibrium.

Lastly, the most important step IMO, is to try clarify and unknot the miscommunication or misunderstanding instead of just sit and watch it screw up your relationship. Sometimes you may need to apologize, even when you think that you did absolutely nothing wrong. Well, ‘humility’ owns ‘ego’ hands down, plus “Sorry” is just a 2 syllable word, if it could make a relationship work, why not?