Analyze this

I thought I would dwell a bit on the old-time favourite subject, that's always a hot and interesting topic: relationships and the interpretation of the signals we send, conciously and sub-conciously.

Recently I got an e-mail from long-time friend who had been to a high school-reunion. It had been much fun and he'd also met up with an sort of old girlfriend of his. They'd had a lovely time at the reunion and on her initiative decided to go out for dinner some day soon. They'd spoke on the phone a few days later and it had been a long, fun conversation. Some weeks down the line the guy called the girl to see if that dinner was on, and then she suddenly after some small-talk just said "I had fun at the reunion but I prefer to leave it at that"..... The guy was really confused about her behaviour and also hurt. As he said " I just wanted to go for a dinner and have some conversation - you think I'd asked to change a person's life. I don't understand why people can't be more honest upfront - is that so difficult? Funny, I thought we were all adults."

Of course I had to put my (over) analyzing-skills to use here! - This is an occupational disease of mine.... Typically lawyer-thing, and it doesn't make things less heavy that we (my dad and I) also used to discuss and analyze a lot at home when I was younger...

Anyway, perhaps analyzing in a foreign language is like trying to be witty in English. It isn't always the easiest thing... I think that's one of THE big problems when speaking or writing in another language than your own, the sense of humour can really get misinterpreted or just completely misdirected. I see that in friends who have immigrated from abroud when speaking Swedish, it can be quite difficult when joking - or perhaps they're just boring... - and it's the same thing when speaking with foreign friends. Especially when we both don't have English as our native language...

Back to the analyzing thing then - the poor guy didn't know what hit him from the other side of the Atlantic.... - a really, really amateuristic-shrink-point of view! I think it's a far too common problem, that with what signals we do send out, what signals we think we send out, and what signals that are interpreted and received. Subconciously and conciously and all that. Maybe the girl thought that he where looking for a serious thing, with the prospect marriage and 10 children along the line. And maybe, even if I know, I know the logic says something completely different, deep down he thought of something like that. Maybe she picked up on that? And didn't want to be that one for him, wasn't ready for it or, well whatever...

"Honest up front", well that's sometimes easier said than done, if you are honest enough to say your searching for a life partner, want children or all that then you might come of as desperate or well, a bit strange I suppose (even if it's what many people do look for...). If you meet someone at a reunion (or some social thing) and get talking it's so easy to just socially say "let's meet for dinner" and mean nothing with that. Most of the times I suspect that phrase doesn't lead to anything. It's easier to just say "Fun to meet you again, good luck with your life!" and at least I wouldn't be offended by that, but somehow the other phrases are used more often...

Over the years I myself have at least have grown in that area, and when meeting new or old acquaintances at gatherings I never ever say "hey let's meet for coffee!" if I don't really mean it, and I would never ever give someone my phone-number if I didn't feel like be social with them again. In a more relaxed, daily situation with dinner/coffee you probably see if that new/old friendship is something to work with or not. But all people aren't grown up with this, I know. And even if I am in this particular situation, I'm really not (or don't feel like that anyway...) in other situations...

I do understand it hurts, but in the end (oh I know this sounds so mature and the right thing to say, and it's so much easier to give good advice to others than follow them yourself... But still there's a bit of truth in it...) it'll stop and just be a life-lesson that makes you wiser.

I think the blue friend of mine did misinterpret my analyzing a bit though. I promise I didn't mean it literally with that phrase of "marriage & ten kids". What I meant was that what we conciously think and know in our head is reasonable and "normal" (who wants to be normal?) is one thing, and what we subconciously think, feel incl our dreams is yet another. Therefor the signals we send can be confusing.

I suspect life would be a lot easier to handle if we were like cat's in mind, a lot of sleep, then eat, toilet, play and cuddling and then we'd be satisfied and wouldn't have to deal with a lot of thoughts and interaction with more or less annoying matters/people...