• For the past few months, I’ve been dating the sweetest, most sensitive, generous man I’ve ever met. He’s always there for me when I need his time, ear, and support. The only problem is that, sometimes, he goes off for weeks at a time to take care of his sister and her kids because she’s a drug addict who relies on him even more than I do (but is a lot less trustworthy and takes from him without giving anything in return). When I try to confront him about how much she abuses his generosity and empathy, he just shuts down, and the whole sister situation is what’s preventing us from getting serious together. My goal is to figure out how to show him that, if he wants a life with me, he has to let his sister figure out her life on her own.
• I’ve had a couple boyfriends who were nice, reliable, and genuinely interested in me, but they couldn’t talk about feelings or do much besides grunt if their lives depended on it. Spending time with them always left me feeling lonely and in need of a good, long talk with my best friend. My goal is to find someone who likes to talk about the things I’m interested in, isn’t gay, and could be my best friend.
If starting conversations with attractive people you don’t know feels like tense, sweaty, mortifying torture, as it does for so many people, then nothing seems more valuable in courting than the ability to get a conversation going. Whether that ability is yours or belongs to the person you’re dying to get to know, carrying on a conversation until you’re able to calm down and feel comfortable is the best way to ease the torture while also getting closer to the source of your excitement.
It seems logical to define a good first date by the ease with which you talked and the ability of your conversation to distract you from everything else, particularly the time, your flop sweat, his breath, etc. However, good communication, beyond the first meeting, can be as dangerous and complicated as it is pleasurable.
Since trust is such a warm and welcome feeling, it’s tempting to want to act on it right away and, if you have lingering suspicions, ignore them for fear of ruining a romance. With a good communicator, those suspicions are often built-in, because if he can gain your trust and make you feel special so quickly, you can’t help but worry that he’s just as able to connect with others and make them feel special, too. If you start to criticize yourself for feeling needy or insecure, however, you’re forgetting that it’s your job to worry and withhold trust until you figure out whether you do, indeed, have a special relationship or whether you’re just being charmed into giving up your time, body, and hard-earned cash.
It’s smart, not paranoid, as someone who’s lent this person money and has a stake in his finances, to find out more about the way he manages it. You’re entitled to know whether he has credit-card debt and how he deals with student loans, savings, and other outstanding debts. You also need to know how he plans to pay you back and how well he’s been able to repay previous loans.
Don’t test his integrity by expressing negative feelings and watching how he responds because you’ll be asking for possibly empty reassuring words. What you want to see is genuine reliable behavior, so instead of soliciting contrite promises, carefully watch his actions, such as whether he makes time for you two to be together, how well he tolerates your bad moods when good communication just isn’t possible, and, most important, whether he follows through on promises, such as the one to pay you back.
If he says he’s hurt that you don’t trust him and feels that your questions have damaged a budding romance, don’t accept his definition of mistrust or a good relationship. You’re as positive about the relationship as he is, but he has brought up his need for money, so your finding out how he manages money is necessary to protect your relationship from the bad feelings that always arise from misunderstandings about loans. Instead of blaming yourself for trying to get to know more about a guy who seems unusually trustworthy, give yourself credit for your ability to put aside your need for closeness until you’ve gathered enough facts to be sure that a good communicator is, indeed, someone you can trust.
Other good talkers who are also superior listeners are more likely to be taken advantage of than vice versa; they aren’t evil communicators, but overextended ones. When someone is ultraresponsive to your needs, you may find that he’s passive and makes you too responsible for his life decisions. He may be agreeable for long periods of time and then suddenly complain of feeling dominated and controlled. Or, as you’ve experienced, he may be a slave to his whiniest family member or coworker and become responsive to you only when you blow up and try to snatch the title of whiniest for yourself.
So trust your instincts and look for evidence of independent-mindedness, even when it interferes with pleasant communication. Find out if your no-boundaries boyfriend can ever learn to say no to his sister by asking him if his taking responsibility for her welfare is helping her in the long run. Yes, helping her may make him feel useful or guilt relieved. It’s probable, however, that she’s asking him to do for her many things she should be doing for herself, and that his helpfulness is encouraging bad behavior and discouraging her from ever becoming healthier or independent.
Urge him to raise this issue with a professional counselor; you hope that you’re wrong, but, if you’re right, working with a counselor will make him more helpful while also giving him more control over his own time. Being truly helpful is not a matter of feeling helpful, it’s a matter of doing the right thing.
Describe your having a possible relationship with each other as something that could help both of you start a new life. If he can’t free up enough time and effort, he won’t be able to build a partnership with anyone, and that would be sad. What you want to see is whether he can sustain a commitment to his own future; if he can’t, then you shouldn’t, either.
Rating undercommunicators is difficult because it’s not fun, takes time, and is basically everything an intimate conversation is not. Shyness may interfere with communication when you first meet someone, so give yourself enough time to see if he opens up after he knows you better. It’s also wise to find ways of communicating that don’t depend entirely on words, such as activities that require teamwork or some kind of give-and-take (going on a road trip, programming a DVR, surviving an afternoon at IKEA, etc.).
If you’re not overly dependent on gabby partners (and are happy to outsource your communication needs to friends, hairstylists, or cats), are properly respectful of other ways guys can share and contribute, and still know your minimum limit for verbal communication, then respect your own standards and see if he has what it takes. Observe his ability to express himself at work or with old friends, or ask for his thoughts on topics that should be safe and easy. Then ask yourself whether his nonverbal warmth and handyman contributions are enough to make you happy.
Don’t let the lubricating quality of easy conversation ease you into an otherwise rough relationship; stick with your basic system for rating character and compatibility, regardless of whether someone is delightful to talk to or hates to open his mouth. Even if talking is like pulling teeth, don’t write him off until you’ve taken time to do an objective evaluation. Relationships may begin with conversation, but they live and die by character and behavior.
Quiz: Communication Questionnaire—Is this good line of communication also a good relationship starter?
1. You’ve been having such a good conversation with the pretty girl at the bar that you didn’t even notice that hours have gone by and everyone else has left and gone home. To best wrap up this magical evening, you would:
A: Tell her, frankly, that you have to see her again because you feel you can tell her everything, like, say, that you were suicidal earlier this month and meeting her has given you new hope.
B: Tell her you’ve got work tomorrow and should go anyway but that maybe you’ll see her again at this same bar sometime (attempting to make more specific plans would just lead to awkwardness and rejection).
C: Get her phone number, offer to help her get a cab or walk her home, and tell her how much you’v
e enjoyed talking to her.
2. You’ve always been shy and wary about office romance, but the woman working in the next cubicle laughs at your jokes and likes the same movies, and you find yourself looking forward to your chats by the water cooler. You decide to:
A: Ask her out because she’s such a great person to talk to, even though the last time you dated someone from work she ended up talking to all your coworkers about you after you broke up and it was a year before your coworkers stopped looking at your crotch.
B: Avoid a potential disaster by bringing your own water to work and avoiding her completely.
C: Invite her to have lunch with you and your other work friends and get to know her very, very slowly.
3. Your new boyfriend is easy to talk to and you text each other so constantly that you’ve burned through your data plan and your chin has fused to your chest. If you didn’t hear from him for two days, you would:
A: Call a SWAT team because the only reason he’d go silent like that is if he was being held hostage at gunpoint by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
B: Keep radio silence until he tries to reach you a couple times, then stay cool and detached so he knows you’re fine without him and you can avoid any sort of confrontation.
C: Text him about what you’re doing and ask if he’s okay, hope he responds, then distract yourself with work, the Internet, yoga, etc., to best resist the urge to check in again.
4. Your boyfriend shares everything with you, and you feel there’s nothing you can’t talk about, but you notice he drinks a lot on weekends and doesn’t always allow other people to drive him home from the bar. You decide to:
A: Tell him frankly that he’s driving you crazy with worry and you can’t stand to see him drink and put himself in danger (right before his mother reads a similar statement, since you’ve arranged an intervention).
B: Send him a link to a particularly gruesome article about a DUI accident and, if he doesn’t respond then, just stop talking to him from Friday through Monday (or start on Thursday afternoon, just to be safe).
C: Tell him you’ve noticed this pattern on weekends and ask him what his standards are for safe drinking and whether he thinks he’s meeting those standards.
5. You and your girlfriend don’t always agree, but you both hate the people who live in the apartment next door, and angrily ranting about them always sparks good jokes and brings you together. One day, when they’re having a loud fight, you decide to:
A: Knock on their door together, go full good cop/bad cop, and warn them that you’ll call the real police if they don’t stop. Then spend the next week happily/angrily recalling the event to each other so loudly that the neighbors call the cops on you.
B: Move. To another state. And change your name.
C: Ask your landlord to intervene without mentioning your names. In the meantime, purchase noise-canceling headphones and look at apartment listings.
If you answered mostly A’s . . .
You’re an oversharer who doesn’t stop to think about where expressing your feelings is likely to lead; even when it initially makes you feel closer to someone you care about, it could eventually put you in an awkward, or even dangerous, position. Remind yourself that it’s not good to get too close to someone who doesn’t know you, might not be sticking around, or likes jumping into conflicts you should avoid.
If you answered mostly B’s . . .
Your fears of conflict or rejection prevent you from identifying problems, proposing solutions, and letting people know where you stand. You avoid confrontation and opening up at all costs, which means you keep yourself too far removed from the people around you. Keep your wariness, but learn to test out your fears, because if you can barely share your space or your thoughts with others, you certainly can’t share your life with one of them.
If you answered mostly C’s . . .
You like getting closer, but you see the risks as well as the benefits. You take time to gather facts, observe closely, and check out whether there are any deal breakers (or the traits of possible serial killers). You’ve mastered the art of getting close while keeping a safe distance.
Simple Tips for the Silent Type
If you’re not a big talker, here’s the little that’s required of you communication-wise.
• If she looks upset, don’t put off asking “What’s wrong?”—the longer you wait, the louder/more visual her answer will be when asking becomes unavoidable.
• Tell her she looks nice, because if you tell her frequently enough, she’ll stop asking.
• Remember, death before sulking, so if you’re upset, suck it up until you figure out whether it’s a big deal and then develop a positive way to talk about it.
• When you don’t have anything funny, interesting, or insightful to say, don’t just respond with a monosyllabic answer or a wet grunt; ask her questions and she’ll appreciate your interest and keep finding funny, interesting, or insightful stuff to tell you.
• Tell her what you’ve done to fix up the place or car or toilet and ask her opinion about how to possibly make it better—even if she doesn’t know how, at least it’s a topic you’re comfortable getting into (except for maybe details about the toilet).
Having Good Communication
Having the gift of gab can be a huge part of having game, period. Knowing you’re good at communicating with the opposite sex can give you confidence in your ability to find a partner and keep her interested. Your confidence may, however, mislead you into saying whatever you feel like without thinking about the power of words to create attachment, mutual dependence, and even fear if you plow through boundaries before one or both of you is ready. Don’t let your gift for good talk create close connections before you’ve assessed the risks and decided they’re not a bad bet.
Here are three examples:
• I know I’m not such a handsome guy, but I’ve always found it easy to talk to girls in bars and establish a natural connection that leads easily to hooking up without the conversation getting too serious or implying anything permanent. Even though these girls are cool with not having a serious romantic relationship, that we connect so strongly through talk often leads them to expect a lasting friendship that is deeper than I want, with regular communication and close mutual support. I like to go my own way, period, no matter how I got into their pants. My goal is to enjoy the intimacy without creating false expectations.
• I’m good at communicating what I’m feeling—I believe that it’s probably damaging to bottle things up and hold back when you have something to say—and it’s led to some good, close relationships, but then things always seem to go wrong. At some point, even my closest friends seem to misinterpret what I’m saying or they ignore it and respond as if I were criticizing them, or asking for something unfair, or just being inappropriate and “nuts.” My goal is to find out where my communication is failing so I can take close relationships to a higher level.
• I’ve always had a gift for friendship and can talk to almost anyone and make people laugh and feel comfortable expressing themselves, but it’s hard to get guys to see me as more than an ear. They love to talk to me, particularly when they’re unhappy about something, but instead of that leading to serious dating, I find myself stuck in friend purgatory (and not the acceptable kind with nights out and occasional awkward hookups, but the kind where I become their ad hoc crisis counselor, prized for my advice-giving over fun-having). My goal is to figure out how to make my communication skills lead to partnership rather than second-banana friendship.
While good communication skills may give you the power to start and deepen the bonds of relationships, they do not negate the underlying needs that bring people together and determine how or whether they will get along. In the proverbial body of a relationship, communication is merely the circulatory system, while those underlying needs and values are the skeleton, and without a complete set of bones, you aren’t going to last long or go far.
For inst
ance, if you see communication as a means to a sexual end and your partners see it as the end achieved by sexual means, they may well grow disappointed with what they regard as your relative unavailability and feel that your friendliness promises more than it delivers. Your relationship doesn’t resemble a body so much as a grotesque blob.
No laws of social commerce oblige you to meet your sexual partners’ social needs when they are stronger than your own and were never part of the sexual arrangement to begin with. If, however, you try to explain, after the fact, that you have affection and respect but no great desire to spend nonbedroom time together, you may wind up deepening rather than easing the hurt. Instead, put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself how much clarification and advanced warning you would like to receive from someone who was genuinely friendly but did not wish to be more than a casual friend in the long run.
You have a duty to protect yourself from exploitation, but you may also decide that a good person should impose fair disclosure rules on him- or herself so as not to inadvertently exploit others. So instead of letting charm and sexual needs dictate your actions, confirm that your partners are no more interested in social relationships than you are and be more specific about where you stand. You don’t have to reject anyone personally to let her know that, as much as you enjoy her company, your social interest in her (and probably others) is relatively limited. As a result of such selectivity, you may have fewer sexual encounters, but the ones you do have will be on mutually agreed terms with women with whom you share both a desire and a desired level of commitment, and be more enjoyable in the long run.
Having good communication with someone can also cause trouble if you don’t know when to shut your mouth. Even when a relationship makes you feel as if you can talk about anything and everything, you will always discover some issues and beliefs that can cause hurt and misunderstanding. If you assume that good communication can always establish rapport and remove disagreements, you may try harder to discuss these topics and so make misunderstandings worse. Instead, respect that communication is a gift and blessing that can also enhance the risk of conflict.
F*ck Love: One Shrink's Sensible Advice for Finding a Lasting Relationship Page 10