Saying nothing at all!

You know when someone says “it goes without saying”, does it grate on you? What are they saying. I think it might be,” I’ve tried having this simple kind of conversation before and thought it was self explanatory but somehow we got our wires crossed, so can you listen carefully to me, please?”

My beloved and I, cross wires all the time, its incredibly easy for us to misunderstand each other. Take this morning for instance, he’s away, so he phoned to say, “ morning” ok so far?

Then we got onto practicalities about the printer,( I need to send a copy of a document in the post today. But we have no ink, so I thought of a solution.) “Its ok, darling I’ll scan it onto my laptop.” Silence I could hear his cogs whirring round trying to find the right words. I’m on alert for a question which tests my technical knowledge. “er can you, I mean how can you do that?” he asked, “is that a catch question, do you know and you’re testing me or don’t you know” He sometimes thinks its kinder not to get to the point, I hate round the houses questioning. “No I really don’t know, we have no ink, how’s that going to help?” It seemed obvious to me, obviously it wasn’t. I had decided I could scan it in and e- mail it to the recipient, simple! He was still visualizing me trying to print it out. Well who was going to break this impasse of miscommunication, who was going to say, what we both thought went without saying, him, ”if you want a hard copy to print and post you will need ink, you idiot!” me” I will scan it in save it as a document, and send it as an attachment via e mail, Doh!”. Well we got there in the end both a little frustrated with the denseness of the other. We did part on good terms, he might have an accident or something and I don’t want our last conversation to be frosty! “Love you” I said laughing, what did go without saying was, “numb nuts!” he replied “Love you too, have a great day” without adding” weirdo!”



Saying nothing at all,

Sometimes as important as saying what goes without saying is, not to say what is obvious. “least said soonest mended and all that”. It made us smile I could hear his smile over the phone, We have been married for 25 yrs, as I have mentioned before, please pay attention. We have these communication difficulties, I have mentioned that before too! When I read Twitter and Blogs the opportunities for being misunderstood are endless. Trying to condense your deep thought into less than 141 characters and “speak” about matters of the heart without face to face contact, is fraught with danger. No touch of the arm, no squeeze of the hand, to soften a word or emphasise you care. No raised eyebrow to alert the speaker they may be causing offence.

This is an art as is Twitter, I enjoy the growing warmth of the Twitter and Blogging community, its not necessarily easier than “real” relationships, though because we all have to learn how to communicate without seeing, feeling hearing.  The growing trend of symbols is very interesting and tends to humanise and soften what we say, but I haven’t mastered that yet so. Anyone out there who reads this or my Tweets please think of me with a big smiley face, concerned eyes and an outstretched hand, I mean no harm and want to say this, even though it may go without saying, if there are two ways to read anything I write see it the good way, infused with kindness.

Love Alison x