In a way — I guess.
You see, when I first woke up this morning, I wrote a knee-jerk reaction type of post to a barrage of text messages I received last night. Although the post was succinct and vague, I felt it a waste of my time (writing) and your time (reading) about that stupid business.
Admittedly, I somewhat care about “that stupid business” or I wouldn’t have wanted to lash out about it this morning. But there’s caring and then there’s caring and I guess I don’t really care that much after all. In a way, I care more to write about something less petty, so you, loyal readers equal to one, will not think of me as a silly woman. (I am a silly woman.)
So instead here is a brief reflection on interpersonal relationships. I had a conversation with somebody the other day and I prefaced the topic by asking:
“Are you the type of person who wants to be part of the decision-making process/kept in the loop or would you rather get information on a need to know basis?”
(I don’t think those were the exact words but the point is the same.) So person says, “I want to be part of the process…” Well, easy enough as I happen to be extroverted in most cases. But, the point is that it’s not often, at least in my experience, that we try to deal with someone the way they want to be dealt with. We try to deal with them the way we want to be dealt with and often, those differ!
Dad and I have fine-tuned this one over several years of being a father/daughter dynamic. He’s learned that there are rant moments and that in rant moments he’s allowed to nod, laugh, and make stupidly inappropriate comments. Nothing profound. This usually happens when I’m venting about a client or a professor (or both). But this only happened after several arguments along the lines of “DAD STOP GIVING ME ADVICE and JUST LISTEN” and now we laugh about it.
He on the other hand has a different type of request. Ever since I moved away from home, if I call him and something could be wrong (like the time I was in the hospital or if I sound upset), he wants to know the punch line of the story first. Rather, he doesn’t want me to tell him that, I’m in the hospital, they ran some tests, but I’m ok. He wants, “Dad, I’m ok but this is what happened.”
As long as he hears the “I’m ok” part, we’re good to proceed.
Today’s agenda: try talking to somebody the way they want to be spoken to. Magic ensues. Seriously.