I can't wait 'til Monday
What do you get when you match up two people with very different upbringing and very differing communication skills? Lots of misunderstandings, yelling, and hurt feelings on both ends.
I grew up as the "baby" in my house. Typically, you always think of the last child as being loud and obnoxious just to be heard in a household of adults and older siblings. I was never like that. I repressed feelings of never being heard, because every time I did try to speak I never felt listened to. This angered me. A lot. To the extent that I got in the habit of only speaking when I felt I had something really important to say. And then when I did speak people better listen or else I would get extremely irritated and angry.....and supress it.
Now that I'm an adult I have tried to change this really bad habit. Not only because it's damaging to me, but to those around me, specifically the people I live with. How have I attempted change? For one, I don't let people interrupt me when I am talking to them. This can be sometimes awkward because there is a natural ebb and flow to conversations. But if someone tries to interrupt mid-stream, I will most often finish out my thought even though they are obviously trying to interject their point of view. It's not that I don't want to hear their point of view. But because I so often let people stomp on my views and allowed them to not let me finish my point, I am more than determined now.
That's why I love blogging.
That's also part of the reason why, in Home Depot this afternoon, the conversation quickly changed from what tools to use to scrape paint to me making someone feel like an idiot. Because I want to (and am obsessively determined to) get my point of view across, it does not mean that I think everyone else's views are idiotic. And even as I write this, it sounds like I'm again trying to sound like I'm the one with the correct logic or that I'm "right". I know I'm not. I know that I have so much of my own "stuff" that needs to be worked through and have no idea how to begin.
I can't wait 'til Monday when I can ignore feelings and confrontations and stupid paint for at least a few hours.
I grew up as the "baby" in my house. Typically, you always think of the last child as being loud and obnoxious just to be heard in a household of adults and older siblings. I was never like that. I repressed feelings of never being heard, because every time I did try to speak I never felt listened to. This angered me. A lot. To the extent that I got in the habit of only speaking when I felt I had something really important to say. And then when I did speak people better listen or else I would get extremely irritated and angry.....and supress it.
Now that I'm an adult I have tried to change this really bad habit. Not only because it's damaging to me, but to those around me, specifically the people I live with. How have I attempted change? For one, I don't let people interrupt me when I am talking to them. This can be sometimes awkward because there is a natural ebb and flow to conversations. But if someone tries to interrupt mid-stream, I will most often finish out my thought even though they are obviously trying to interject their point of view. It's not that I don't want to hear their point of view. But because I so often let people stomp on my views and allowed them to not let me finish my point, I am more than determined now.
That's why I love blogging.
That's also part of the reason why, in Home Depot this afternoon, the conversation quickly changed from what tools to use to scrape paint to me making someone feel like an idiot. Because I want to (and am obsessively determined to) get my point of view across, it does not mean that I think everyone else's views are idiotic. And even as I write this, it sounds like I'm again trying to sound like I'm the one with the correct logic or that I'm "right". I know I'm not. I know that I have so much of my own "stuff" that needs to be worked through and have no idea how to begin.
I can't wait 'til Monday when I can ignore feelings and confrontations and stupid paint for at least a few hours.
posted by Roxanne @ 6:14 PM
2 Comments:
At 12:14 PM ,
This suzy said...
I can completely understand why you would want to finish what it is that you're trying to say before the other person starts. I mean, who's to say that you're not going to say something that would change their reply if they let you finish, right? But unfortunately not everyone can be polite enough to wait and then they don't understand that you want (and should) be able to finish what you're saying. Why can't everyone just understand, dang it? lol
At 5:20 PM ,
Citizen_Stu said...
I'm an only child and I still some how managed to develop a similar habit. It took me a little while I but I also managed to stop people interrupting me as much.
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