Scaling the Language Barrier

Posted by RaynecloseAuthor: Rayne Name: Rayne Millaray
Email: rayne@edenfantasys.com
Site: http://www.insatiabledesire.com/
About: A loving slave with sadistic tendencies and masochistic desires. Chaos incarnate. The girl your mother warned you about. Reviewer at Eden Fantasys and long time blogger.See Authors Posts (467)

Hi, my name is Rayne, and I’m an addict.

Hi, Rayne!

The first time I saw it, I was looking over my husband’s shoulder. He’d just click a button, and be instantly amazed for hours. I knew I had to have some. So I asked him to introduce me. The next day, I did the dishes, sat down for a lunch break, clicked the button and I was gone.

I figured I could quit any time I wanted, and just to prove it, I didn’t click the button for an entire day. But the next day, I just had to have more. And I clicked the button again. StumbleUpon owns my soul.

I always forget to click the “Like” button. I’m working on that. But if you’re like me, and you forget to click the “Like” button a lot, you probably see the same thing one hundred fifty-seven thousand six-hundred ninety-two times before you finally remember that if you click one of those two buttons up there you won’t see it again for a while. Maybe. If you don’t run out of things to stumble in whatever category you’re stumbling.

Also if you’re like me, you’ve seen this article one hundred fifty-seven thousand six-hundred ninety-three times, but you’ve only just caved and decided to read it in its entirety. Or what’s there, at least.

It’s about the differences in the way men and women communicate. To be honest, I’m not sure the line is drawn between the genders so much as who you are and how you grew up. But this is exactly what I mean when I say M and I speak different languages. And I got really excited when I read this, realizing that M and I are not the only people in the world who have this problem.

That makes it a real issue, right? Something we should attempt to fix?

I mean, not because some article on the web says men and women should work on learning to speak the same language. But because speaking the same language would make things so much easier within our relationship.

This first example:

A married couple was in a car when the wife turned to her husband and asked, “Would you like to stop for a coffee?”

“No, thanks,” he answered truthfully. So they didn’t stop.

The result? The wife, who had indeed wanted to stop, became annoyed because she felt her preference had not been considered. The husband, seeing his wife was angry, became frustrated. Why didn’t she just say what she wanted?

Things like this happen to us all the time, and not usually over coffee. But over things just as small.

For example, I’ll have just scrubbed the entire kitchen top to bottom, and M will say, “You need to pick up the house today.” and I’ll hear, “All you’ve done today is sit on your ass.” Or I’ll say, “You should really do something about… blah.” (cause I can’t think of an example) and he’ll hear, “Your not good enough.” Both are trained responses to people neither of us even speak to anymore. We don’t mean to misunderstand, it just happens to be what the exes meant when they said those things. We’re not used to constructive criticism being constructive criticism, as opposed to veiled insults.

You’d think, rounding the corner of eight years, we’d get over ourselves already.

And it’s not restricted to just those things. We misunderstand each other all the time. And usually because of assumptions based on how things would be meant were they said by someone else.

His take on it goes a little something like this:

I know him. I’ve known him eight years. I should know, by now, that if he means “All you’ve done today is sit on your ass.” he’ll damn well say, “All you’ve done today is sit on your ass.” He might add to that, “Get off your ass and do something. Pick up the house. Clean the bedroom. Do Pilates for all I care, but do something.”

Why, yes he does act like he’s my father, sometimes. He’ll be so pleased to hear you agree. ~snicker~

My take goes a little something like this:

I shouldn’t have to “just know” what he means based on how long we’ve been together. He should make an effort to be more clear.

And this is when the brakes go on. There are no “he shoulds” in this relationship. He decides what he should do, not me. He is owner. I am owned.

It’s not that he thinks he’s perfect. He’s not so arrogant that he doesn’t realize he has flaws. It’s just that it’s not my place as property to to tell him what he should do. (And honestly, he should make an effort to be more clear, even though I can’t be arsed to realize that he’s not taking what I’ve already done around the house for granted?)

Because for him, “should” is an imperative, while for me, it’s a suggestion. I was taught that if I didn’t understand someone, it was their responsibility, should they want to continue communicating with me, to make themselves more clear, not my responsibility to guess at what they meant. But M believes that by now, I should know the way his mind works, and not have to guess at what he really means.

Who’s right? Both of us? Neither of us? Him? Me? Does it matter? Really, what matters at the end of the day, is that we’ve found a way to communicate despite our language barrier. (And isn’t it hilarious that we both speak American English, and yet, there’s a language barrier?)