This little video, a 2009 Cannes Lions winner, says a whole lot about communication. How much we need it. How difficult it can be. How wonderful making the right connection is.
And it does it all without the main characters saying anything.
It really does take the idea of text messages–something those of us online deal with daily–to a whole new level.
What’s the strangest way you’ve ever connected with someone else?
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s how easily I can fall back into old patterns.
And my old patterns when it comes to romantic feelings are far from beneficial to me or anyone else who may be involved.
I can very quickly fall into an obsessive, self-destructive crush mode. On the flip side, I can fall for someone because I think I can “save” them–the perfect example of White Knight Syndrome. There are also any number of other things that I’m at least vaguely attracted to that are sure-fire paths to badly skewed cost/benefit ratio.
In order to avoid those known problem areas, I’ve got a set of questions and tests that I’ve conditioned the logical side of my mind to automatically start running through as soon as a crush lasts for more than a day or two. Here are five of the big ones.
Often, this is the only question I need to ask and answer to determine a real relationship would be a bad idea. There are many things that can look like falling for someone. You can be in love with the idea of a relationship–any relationship–and the object of your crush is just a convenient target. You can see them as a “project”–something to be fixed (a la The White Knight issues). Or, in my case, you can fall for the idea of the story that the attempt at the relationship would lead to–probably not the best reason to get involved with someone.
If you manage to get past the first question, this one serves as a double-check and a deeper exploration of your own feelings. Again, the answer here could point back to a White Knight issue (“Because she has so much potential that I can help bring out!”). It can also lead to a very sensible list of positive qualities that match well with your own sensibilities. A close look at this list can also hint at the depth of the potential relationship–if everything focuses on the physical (pretty, snappy dresser, good job, etc.), there’s a hefty chance it’ll be a superficial fling.
Another chance for a nice list. Relationships between people with nothing in common (despite what oh-so-many pop-culture fairy tales tell us) rarely work out well in the long run. At best, both people happily go their separate ways with broadened horizons. More often, there are grudges, heavy misunderstandings, and big fights. One big thing to look for is a common communication style. If one of you communicates best face to face and the other does best via e-mail or text message, it’s going to be a rough road.
Is she a co-worker? Is he a business partner? Your boss? Your employee? A recent ex of a good friend? There are any number of situations that could make a relationship seem inappropriate. Even if it isn’t a make-or-break question, it’s important to realize going into a relationship how it’s going to look to those outside. External social dynamics can cause a lot of problems inside a relationship.
This is the biggest of the big deal questions. It can override all that come before or after it. It can also, in retrospect, point right back to the first question. Almost any obstacle can be overcome, almost any hardship beaten, but all that comes at a cost. Often, that cost is in our own comfort, integrity, safety, and/or security. If she refuses to live north of the Mason-Dixon line, are you OK with having to travel long distances to visit your family in Chicago? If he can’t stand the west coast, are you willing to give up on that dream of living in LA? Relationships are always about compromise, you should be very familiar with where your limits of giving are.
Granted, these are all questions asked by the logical side of the brain. There’s only so much that side can do if the emotional half is determined to jump from crush to relationship, no matter what.
At least if things go poorly, you’ll have the small consolation of being able to look back, shake your head, and say “I should have known.”
And if things go well… all the better: You’ve either beaten your own odds or proved you accurately know yourself.
Every now and then, something pops up that’s kind of tangentially related to the whole relationship thing.
This is one of those times.
Shane Snow, writer and artist, produced a nice little infographic over at Gizmodo that touches on a very important issue: technology and our relationships. In this case, the near-ubiquitous iPhone. It’s good for a laugh… probably because it hits so close to home for many of us who are neck-deep in technology.
Check out When Is It Inappropriate To Use Your iPhone?
So… how often has technology (be it cell phones or video games or TIVO or what have you) caused a problem in your relationship?
Despite my best efforts, I never was able to fully overcome all those little anxieties that had settled into place over the yeas before high school. They were always at their worst, though, when I was surrounded by the same people who had been around when they first formed.
The odd thing was, anytime I removed myself from the ordinary and familiar, I felt much more alive. Much more myself. Much more at home.
Key Club was the most common escape route. Every year there was a district convention that, while it happened more or less right in our own back yard, always felt like somewhere foreign. Also once a year there was an international convention that took place well beyond the confines of my home county. I made it to four district conventions and two international ones.
Finding myself on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, surrounded by lovely young women was something I would have never considered possible during the first half of my high school career.
These were the places where I thrived.
At my very first district convention, I broke through a lot of personal issues and got to know someone who really did change my life.
Removed from my ordinary rut, I allowed myself to be more true to who I was. Without the worries of overcoming past impressions made, I was free to experiment a little, to try on who I wanted to be.
It worked quite well.
During that time, I managed to make a good number of friends, in the space of a weekend or so, that I felt closer to than people I had known for years. A few would surface again, when I was in college. Some of them I’m still in touch with–more frequently than most people I graduated high school with.
Fear follows us only where we let it. When I was within the walls of my high school and, most of the time, within the confines of my home county, I was steeped in fear and depression caused by years of emotional baggage. Traveling, being surrounded by a fresh batch of people, sharing a common “newness” of experience–those things let me leave my fear behind. For those brief weekends, I was free to discover who I actually was, deep down inside.
It wouldn’t be until years later–nearly half-way into my college career–that I would fully understand just how much I limited myself when I was on my “home turf”. The shock of returning to the normal grind after a convention inevitaby shot me into a depression that would block out most of what I should have learned.
But, during my darkest times, those bits of interaction–the quick crushes, the shared laughter, the adventurous exploration–would be beacons to keep me from falling too deeply too quickly.
With my descent slowed, I could always find a kind, local hand to reach out to.
At the beginning it’s easy to get caught up.
Caught up in the rush of the crush. In the glorious spin of possibilities. In the wild imaginings of what most certainly will be. Our hearts and minds soar, our heads spin, our toes barely touch the ground.
Sure there is fear and worry, but they propel us. The make the highs higher and keep us reaching. The need to know–to make real those fantasies–is what pushes us out of our warm crush and into the harsh chance of reality.
More than half the time, it all ends right there. With very little of our imaginings existing in the real world. Another quarter of the time, we hold on to the fantasy–some times in a very destructive way–until we have no choice but to, dejectedly, let it go and move on.
But then there are those times when something does click. When some measure of our wildest dreams find purchase in the light of day. Then we’re swept away by the wonderfulness of it all. The novelty of a new romance. The adventure of exploring who the other person actually is–and who you are when you’re with her.
If things go well, you compliment one another, building on one another’s strengths, supporting one another’s weaknesses. The feedback loop is positive and, on balance, times are more often happy than not. You grow together, learn together and love together. Wonderful and terrible things happen, but they happen to you both as a unit. Connections grow deep and strong. Something lasting grows.
Or, alternately, the romance burns hot and fast, destroying much in its wake (but, damn, it’s a fun ride at times). The burn-out may be slower–taking months or years–and the still glowing embers inspire deep, wishful memories of the excitement from the initial crush, from the beginning of the romance. Still, things grow cold as distance inserts itself between you and your other. Things change, rarely in the way you want.
Make no mistake, the bulk of the romantic relationships you get into will end. Many of them will end poorly if both you and your partner aren’t well-versed in being grown up about it all. The experience, no matter how bad it may be at times, is always something that can be learned from.
But when it ends, oh! how all that time dedicated to it seems wasted. All that energy and emotion, all that work… gone! We are exhausted, frustrated, confused, angry and upset–all at once and at everything. Crushed! Crushed flat. That same buoyant force that floated our initial fantasy crush high above everything we ever dreamed evaporates and lets reality come crashing down upon us, crushing us as surely as a rock does a bug.
That despair may linger longer than the warmth of the Love that was (or the imagining of the Love that could have been). Sometimes we get stuck there, settling into the inertia, into the rut of self-pity and loathing. We go from licking our wounds (which is natural and good) to inflicting new ones on yourself–knowingly or unknowingly–just to preserve our new, miserable comfort zone.
Overcoming that inertia, though, we find something new. Amid the ruins of our fantasies and the shattered pieces of our recent reality, we find all those pieces of our selves we thought were filled only by another person. Sifting through the debris of failed romance and shattered fantasies, enduring the pain and remembering fondly the joy, we become whole.
Whole–perhaps for the first time in our lives, perhaps remembering that we were at that place before.
Our crushes, our romances, our perceived failures and wild realities… they are all part of that whole. To embrace them all is to grow into ourselves.
