Relationships: Use Your Words

The days of "Do you like me? Check yes/no and adding in maybe" are long gone but some days I wish they would return. Writing is a good form of communication you would figure that would translate well to email and text messaging. Before I cause an uproar with my next statement let me first say we are all works in progress. Every human is on a different path and has different ways of talking about those paths and agendas. For those of the male persuasion it seems that thee most difficult part of life's relationships is communication, at least in my experiences.

Ladies did we do something to stop men from talking? Was it a collective action on the part of women that made men zip their lip? Gentlemen what is it that causes you to not communicate? Ok let us figure this out together shall we? We have heard "communications is key" from psychologists, our pastors and maybe even our boss at one point or another. Personally, I believe it. We make things more complicated then it has to be by not communicating. I recently had one of the disappearing acts in my life return (again). There is some credence in Terry McMillan's novel. He told me he was intimidated by me. I thanked him for being honest then asked him why we didn't have this conversation before. Active listening is apart of communicating. I listened to why he felt intimidated but in this situation there was nothing I could have really done to alleviate his feelings.

If we can be intimate with one another why can't we communicate with one another? What creates that barrier? I admit men have a lot of pressure on them. They are by societies definition the bread winner, the aggressor, the one who puts himself out there to face possible rejection. I get it. ( I have tried to be the aggressor in situations and have officially "chalked them up" because uhhhhh... that ain't work either.)

Approaching women is an art, if you come on to strong you may get shot down, if you approach an immature woman with a group of her friends, you may get shot down, if you come off to 'soft' or to 'nice'  you may get shot down. So I am sure it is an intensely pressure filled situation. But once you kick that sweetness in a woman's ear, make her laugh, draw her in
and start on the road to a relationship the communications breaks down. Why?

I have turned down the advances of men on the street with questions like 'Hey can I get your number?' Uhmmm dude you don't even know my name. What happened to "Excuse me Miss"? I'm not havin' it! I am not having anything other than polite conversation. Cat calling and street harassment is not going to get it. Case and point... Just the other day on the train a young boy yelled to me:

"Ay girl with the glasses looking at her phone. Ay."

I look up.

"How you doing?"

I obliged with a response even though I knew this young man could have been only in his late teens. I look young so...

"I am fine thank you, how are you?"

Don't want to dash the hopes of the youth.

I got nothing. I made eye contact and awaited a response. Crickets. So I went back to what I was doing. And he was like...

"Oh you ain't gonna talk to me?"

HUH? Ok so maybe he was hearing impaired? Can that be the excuse? I set him up for the follow through and there wasn't one. Having a conversation is like a game of tennis. Back and forth. Someone serves you receive and counter. It doesn't seem to be happening that way.

How can we bridge the communications gap? Men? Ladies? Let's hear it.