What Happens When We Are Not Really Communicating?

The things we feel people should know better to do. How we expect people to know what goes on in our head even when we are not saying anything is quite astounding. Our problem is that we are not communicating well enough. Why is it too hard for us to say what we want in clearer terms?

I have always had this thought that people should know better, and this flawed reasoning has always, on many occasions, ruined things for me. My relationship with my best friend was not always sour. We were best friends who enjoyed the same things, we shared same birthdays, same taste of music, same dreams, fantasies, dresses, and bed, but it was not always to be so.

There were times when I felt she should know better to do some things, so, I didn’t tell her stuff that bothered me. Little did I know this was slowly ruining things between us. We knew something was wrong and we did nothing about it because she was guessing what she had done wrong, and in my little mind, I thought, “why won’t she know? Like isn’t it very obvious?” and this dragged on slowly, until it got to a point where we became strangers to ourselves. Two people who loved themselves and shared things in common became strangers and enemies all of a sudden, and let distrust come between them. Bad feelings, like the other person was an enemy that should be avoided. Best friends suddenly became two different people who grew continually aware of themselves why they still shared the same bed. And one day, I could no longer bear it anymore. I had to tell her what was wrong. And all pent-up anger came bursting out. I told her why I couldn’t tell her what I thought at first, but it was too late. The damage had been done. I took a very long look at my best friend-turned-stranger in 2013, while I stuffed my belongings into a bag and I realized I’d lost her.

…

Years passed by and we carefully avoided one another in school. It was never the same without her and while I type this, I still miss her, but I've slowly brought myself to think about what happened, and why it all happened and i’m able to arrive at one possible cause… bad communication.

Bad communication is like rotten eggs. When you don’t do anything about it, it spreads to the other eggs, destroying everything.

What is Communication?
Communication is the art of exchanging information, feelings or thought, from one person to another. It is an art because it is a skill. We choose to ignore the fact that communication is learned so we put little or no effort into improving this important part of human life.

Wikipedia defines Communication as;

“The act of conveying intended meanings from one group to another through the use of mutually understood signs and semiotic rules.”

This definition goes to show that communication is done intentionally by people, groups, entities. People choose to, or to not communicate. Communication involves people who convey thoughts or feelings by an agreed language.

Most of the failed relationships we have is due to poor communication.

Someone can say,
“…but we talk!. Why am I still having problems in my relationship?”

Oh, hunny, but y’all don’t communicate well enough.

I remember going on a date with someone. We’d just met and still getting to know each other. At the restaurant, just before we placed our orders, we’d run out of what to say. We just didn’t know what else to say so we ran to our phones for rescue. He tapped, tapped away and I sought out my friends on Facebook. Then, I realized what was happening. I was supposed to be getting to know an actual human, but I was communicating with what I’d already gotten acquainted with… my phone. My social reality. And the funny thing was that as I looked up from my phone, I saw this person pressing his phone while stealing glances at me, same with what was going on in the room. We have replaced quality human interaction with social media that we don’t even remember how to interact face to face with actual humans.

Distortion in Communication
Why won’t our communication be distorted when we can’t even communicate what we want, to ourselves?

Distorted communication is like having a dream that you can’t remember what it is about, so you try to have a clearer picture by drawing it out. Give this drawing to two persons and they have different ideas of what the dream is. Most times, our communication system is like this. We talk more and listen less because most times, we feel we already know what the talk is about, and we lose the message behind the conversation.

What made me start writing about communication?

Something almost happened at work. I had misunderstood my boss because of something he’d said. He’d said “You’d be done with this class this Friday” and I thought he had meant “This will be your last class with us, so, start preparing for your last day.” I started preparing for Friday. Thursday came, and I thought to ask him again because he’d given me a task that would span into the next week. He was taken aback. It was clearly not what he’d meant.

This brings me to asking about the relationship between language and meaning. Was it the way he’d said it that made me give another meaning to his words? Was it the body language? Or just the way the words sounded?

With my best friend, I could have told her how I felt at that particular time but I chose not to. She could also have shared her fears about where our relationship was headed, but she didn’t, and our relationship made for the waves.

Most of the problems we have in our lives are because of negligence. Negligence on the part of communicating our fears, our thoughts, our feelings, to the people around us. We do this carelessly, not sparing a thought to what would actually happen when we wake up to find out that we’ve become strangers to the people we love. And it happens. We wake to our fears of living among strangers, people who were once our loved ones, and we start wondering how it all started.