Communication. I spent 4 years hunched over in an accredited university, racked up over $20, 000 in student loan bills, and graduated Cum Laude, learning to communicate. I think I got screwed. Maybe it's because my degree is in Mass communication, and I'm only trying to talk to one person. What if I asked--what is the equivalent of a "mass?" I suppose that's about what, a church full? So, 200-300…we'll call it 300—could I ask 299 women come over stand around my wife while I try to talk to her? Do you think that would help?
Part of the issue is that, not all communication is verbal. Too much interaction is non-verbal and open to interpretation. At this point in my marriage there's so little interaction, and I'm leaving nothing to interpretation. If she asks me to pass the butter, I will make sure that that's the only object she wants.
"Do you want the butter dish too?"
Not to worry, I'll never misinterpret the pass part. We've come this far without throwing things; I'll err on the side of safety before I open up to a missile assault. Besides, she's got a better aim than I do. I throw like a girl.
Tonight was game night. I have friends who played "Simon says" with their kids, my wife played "silence" with me. Silence is a game for 2 or more players, but only one person needs to be an active participant. The object is to say as little as possible to your "partner." This game is called "simple silence." If you have three players you can play "Ignore." In "Ignore," one person is "it." You can talk to the third person, but the object is to ignore "it." Pretend "it" is an elephant in the room. In "ignore," there are points for turning your back to "it" and talking around "it." Maybe later I'll explain "Seething Silence." We're both good at that game.
We just played simple silence tonight. I was "it."
I'd say "Hi, how was your day?"
Grunt. (That's only a half point ambiguous noise word.)
"So anything exciting happen?" I’m a competitor, remember?
Silence.
I let it go. The opening round belongs to her.
Before dinner, I think she spoke less than fifteen words to me. During dinner we ate in absolute silence. It wasn't until after dinner that I was allowed the opportunity to compete.
Here's a tidbit about me: I don't like fat. We had steak, and my piece had lots of fat. Don't roll your eyes! I'm not saying she did that on purpose, she likes the fat, so why would she give it up? But after dinner there were carved chunks of cow marble littering my plate. She moves her empty plate towards mine, looks at my plate, then back up to me.
Maybe she wants my fat?
I shrug.
Once more: push plate, look to plate, then at me.
I open my eyes wide, look into her daunting emeralds, open my mouth (just to that "I'm an idiot" point, not the "Toss something in here" point.), then shake my head.
She drops her shoulders, shakes her head, and repeats her previous gesture. This is the longest look we've shared since we first said "I love you." Too bad everything before "you" has been replaced with one less endearing word.
I know what she wants, but I'm not giving up easily. Besides, I'm not giving her extra points for misinterpretation. No, I'm Scottish, I'm stubborn, and I'll play this out. I stare silently back.
"Cosmo?"
Ha! One word penalty. Cosmo is our dog.
"Outside."
Three points for being obtuse. Besides I don't know if she wants to take the fat out herself or wants me to take it. All you need to do is ask. Say the words Babe! (ok, so I didn't think "Babe." sue me.)
Sigh, "Are you going to take the fat out to Cosmo?"
Complete sentence, 15 point penalty. And that's the game.
"Sure! That's a great idea." I'm a bad winner, I'll rub it in, "You should try talking, it comes in handy. It saved the cave man."
"No it didn't. He died."
"Well the ones who didn't talk died, they were eaten up because they couldn't communicate."
"They all died."
"Well yeah, but that wasn't until they met cave woman." Ok, I didn't say it. I wanted to, but I didn't. See though? That's the difference between then and now. A year ago I could have said it, What's more, I would have said it, and all would have been fine. In fact, she'd probably have said something like "too bad the cave women didn't take all of you out and save us the trouble." Then we'd have laughed. We don't laugh anymore. Everybody is busy replaying every word for hidden meaning.
The rest of the evening we watched TV, that's the only time we talk. Something about the electron radiation allows us to speak without worry. We critique acting and plot. We're experts. Tonight we watched an episode of Cold Case from our DVR. It's funny, in this episode a husband and wife were fighting, and their daughter confronts them. She says "You should stop fighting"
Dad says, "It isn't that easy."
Preach on brother man! Oh televised sage, tell me what I can do to save my marriage.
That’s when he says the stupidest thing I've ever heard. "Lets make popcorn."
What the hell? I missed the self-help chapter on "Popcorn: The bad marriage cure-all." Dude! Somebody dig Orville Redenbacher up and give him a Nobel prize; He's eliminated divorce! So, TV failed to answer our communication problems. Since "The Decision" it's been like this, and when we do talk, it's like running your knuckles through a cheese grater. This was a conversation from last week while driving to dinner:
Her: "They should watch what they abbreviate on their sign."
Me: "Why? What did it say?"
Her: "It said S-T-yeah that's an ok abbreviation-Paul E-V Episcopal church."
Me: "Yeah well I know what E-V is--"
Her: "Well so do I. but not everybody does."
Me: "Right, but they probably figure, that the people who don't know what it means, it won't matter. Although it is odd that Episcopalians would mark themselves as E-V they tend to be more inclusive."
Her: "They're Lutherans"
Me: "No, Episcopalians are different than--"
Her: "NO! the church is EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN!"
Me: "Oh, I thought you said they were Epis--"
Her: "NO! I said LUTHERANS!"
Me: "Oh, I heard Epi--"
Her: "I said LUTHERANS!"
Me: "I believe what you said, but what I heard, was Episcopalians."
We've become my grandparents without the 30 years of staying together. We've skipped the fun, and shot straight to senile. If we slept together, I could look forward to toothless snoring and, blanket stealing.
So now I guess I'm supposed to share a "good" memory huh? Well, it's all those times we were able to communicate. We used to be an awesome team. Before 2005, She could practically read my thoughts. She knew my moods, and she knew how to appease the inner belligerent child. And I could do the same. It was great, when one person was down, the other person was on their game. We were awesome! We could walk into a store, split, grab what we needed, and meet up at the checkout without duplicate items. That's what I loved, but even more, I loved that we didn't split up unless we needed to. We strolled through the store smiling at each other, laughing stupid sale signs, and running each other over with the grocery cart. One time we had a whole adventure just trying to find fresh fennel for a recipe. We searched all over town, and we found it. Together.
No comments:
Post a Comment