Me and Communication

Me, and Communication.

First of all, minor aside – I don’t wanna and all that.  Much follow-up/follow-on blogging I wish to do on that – many relevant thoughts, etc., but, want to first cover what’s much more topically on my mind – communication – and, I’ve already drafted quite a bit regarding communication, whereas most all the stuff related to the I don’t wanna – is mostly just bumping around in my head, and hasn’t been typed out at all.  And, in case one was curious, my mood … slightly/moderately better than when I mostly wrote that I don’t wanna blog entry … but not all that substantially different.  And the mood is also relatively fickle and not nearly as “grounded” as it ought be … but I digress.  That’s for some subsequent blog posting to cover/update and follow-on to that.

So, a whole lot of thoughts – and also observations, even feelings, etc., regarding me and communication.  Been rather to quite thinking of that again (and typing up and writing/drafting stuff on it – most of which ought go on blog), and fair bit of it driven from some bits of specific feedback, but much, even most of it, from my own observations and thoughts on the matter.  And “the matter” is right.  Yes, something’s the matter with it.  At least generally.

What’s the matter with it?  I really wish I knew – quite similar to some other things I quite wish I knew, but am really highly in the dark about.

So, what does – and doesn’t – work with me and communication – most notably me attempting to communicate; let’s mostly ignore the bit about my reception of communication – at least for this blog posting, anyway (besides, as far as I know that’s somewhere between “okay” and quite good – certainly mostly seem to take things in quite well enough; perhaps fall rather to quite short on the “active listening” of the receiving side, but other than that, mostly seems to work between “okay” and quite well – at least in my guestimation).

First, what does work (hey, to knock it out of the way, ’cause it’s quite a bit “smaller” anyway).  I manage to be rather to quite the “good listener” – but alas, that’s reception bit – again, let’s skip that.

• “Delivery” – on stuff I’m well versed in, e.g. fair number of technical topics, particularly in certain areas of interest/specialization/career to me, but others too, I can pontificate quite effectively.  Yeah, probably not ideally or highly optimally, but pretty darn well.  “Well enough” to be pretty darn good and efficient with the delivery information (often outperforming others by as much as around 4 to 1 (or more) on that – not to be braggin’ on that, but taking actually returned feedback forms, and quantifying to the extent feasible, that’s what it sometimes, and even fairly commonly, works out to).  So, yeah, I can quite well deliver such material, know such things dang well, can quite expertly field and answer questions (and do so), etc. A professional success (at least as and to the extent I do that … not that that’s mostly what I do, but not to uncommonly at part of what I at least occasionally do).
• diarrhea of the mouth; the gift/curse of gab – most of the time I’m pretty darn quiet/silent, but … I can get going, and sometimes, and with some folks (but alas, definitely not the majority), that can and does actually work quite well.  Yes, some folks do very well with and can very effectively “suck up” and effectively use (and mostly “absorb” and/or process) a rather to quite heavy and steady flow of information/dialog – e.g. for hours or more on end (if/when my voice can actually handle that; do so damn little talking, can’t talk all that long at even a normal conversational volume – but at much quieter level I can go on much longer … or … well, … at least I think/hope I still can … don’t really know – haven’t had such occasion in … geez, … literally decades – at least for hours or more at a stretch, anyway).  Uhm, okay, so maybe that’s the quite rare exception?  But too, we’re talking small number statistics – not like I’ve done all that much conversing with all that many people.  So, percentage-wise, at least within my limited observations and experience, though most aren’t up to receiving that much at that kind of rate for that long, a non-trivial percentage are quite to highly up to and for it.  So, given someone that can take it in, I can pour it out – certainly at least if I’m sufficiently with what I’m communicating to whom.
• “good” honest, forthright communication.  I’m a damn honest communicator.  Perhaps even to a fault.  I do that quite well, and care to.  I generally communicate what ought be communicated – certainly at least for stuff that particularly matters – and at least in circumstances of, say, existing relationship or quite good friend or better; also many other situations, e.g. relevant work contexts – I won’t be silent on what needs to be said or is particularly important to be said.  Sure, maybe I ought say more sooner, too, but for the most part I typically say approximately “enough”, and as relevant and appropriate (and important) in such contexts.  But not nearly so much (if even hardly at all) in more general social contexts.  So, … I do that rather to quite well in functional contexts, not social contexts … well, except in rather to quite well established “relationship” (rather to quite good friends or better) – communicate (at least generally and as feasible) rather to quite well there (but generally highly suck in other social contexts).

Okay, so much for what (more-or-less mostly) “works” – on me communicating well.  What doesn’t work – with me doing the communicating.  Oye, I fear this will be a long list – even if I forget to cover bunches of it, and/or coalesce a lot of overlapping or semi-overlapping areas:

• social – I generally suck at social communication/interaction.  I quite wish I knew why/how that is, but I’m really quite without clue on that.  Sure, know some bits, but whole helluva lot I don’t know that goes wrong there – obviously very wrong, and far too repeatedly.  I can more-or-less do the idle chit-chat / banter – at least one-on-one (much worse at it in group settings), but as far as making more meaningful connections, all the evidence would indicate I mostly highly suck at that, and I’ve no clue as to why.  It’s not like there aren’t exceptions – sure, sometimes well connect with someone.  But those exceptions are so exceedingly rare, something’s got to be going significantly wrong in the other 99.97253% of the cases/interactions.  (okay, maybe that’s not the actual percentage, but it’s got to be in at least the high 90-something percentage range, almost certainly over 98%, and probably over 99%).  Stats/data?  Yeah, e.g. despite whole lot of effort and trying, how many good friends do I make how often?  Less than one a decade – really more like average of about one every 15 years or so.  Quite the sucky rate.  About similar for relationships.  Yeah, been trying to “date” again.  How’s that going?  <cough, cough>  Well, last about 2 years of that, met a grand total of 5 people, and how many of those have I gone out with – or even met more than 3 times?  Yeah, only 2, one of which – far as I can tell, seems unlikely anything’s gonna happen there (I rarely hear back, if at all), and the other – okay, so I got lucky, great friendship, but … relationship?  Not goin’ there – at all.  So, yep, generally quite sucks and have quite sucked at that – communication/interaction, in social context.  Even all the way back into school … college, made almost zero friends (pretty close, almost none particularly good/close, and not many more “casual” friends or whatever), and pretty much lost contact with those few I cared to stay in contact with beyond college.  12th through 6th grade?  Had  grand total of 2 friends … one at a time, over that span of time.  5th grade and earlier?  I think never really more than 2 friends concurrently – mostly just one at a time, and didn’t change all that frequently.  Not really sure before about 1st grade or kindergarten or so – my memory just doesn’t go back that far.  So, for all my efforts, and wanting to be much more connected, what goes wrong, why doesn’t it happen?  For the most part, I really don’t know, and quite wish I did.  
• eye contact – important, and I’m fairly sucky about that.  With a lot of conscious effort and attention, I can do fair bit better on that – but I mostly only find that works okayish for me, if it’s one-on-one and the person is talking to me.  If I’m doing the talking, most of the time, and especially in group settings, looking at, watching, even glancing at other folks, as I’m talking, I find highly distracting.  I tend to totally lose my train of thought – pretty much any movement or reaction or action, even the slightest, as I’m looking at someone – or even looking fairly close towards them, tends to distract the hell out’a me, and I quite forget what I’m talking about – end to drop and stall mid-sentence, and forget what I was talking about, and can’t quickly remember and jump back into it – or even skip ahead to what’s next, or review what was before – all drops from my attention with the distraction, and I quite forget most anything and everything I was saying, said, or was about to say.  E.g. even in work meetings such as highly regular status meetings, where I’m giving verbal reports on status on various things – I’d very much not look at the other folks as I’d give my report.  If I did look, even glanced, as I was talking, I’d totally forget what I was attempting to cover.  So, yeah, I generally quite suck at eye contact – at least where I’m talking, and especially in group settings.  I dunno, maybe if I gave it a whole helluva lot of practice I’d to better with it, for figure out how to compensate?  Or maybe not – maybe I’m just “wired that way”, and there’s little to nothing I can do about it.
• (social) group settings – I quite highly suck at that – most especially group social interactive, but even more generally than just social – certainly at least for what would typically be multi-way interaction situation.  I mostly end up saying almost nothing.  Not sure precisely how/why that’s the case, but, as I think what to say, usually by the time I’ve organized the thought and words enough that it’s otherwise appropriate, relevant, and timely to say, well … the conversation has quite moved on, and it’s become quite untimely to bring it up or add it that much later – so I typically don’t, and this repeats, over and over and over and over.  I’m also not particularly assertive, or comfortable with being so, so I’m generally not gonna interrupt other folks while they’re talking; which, in many group situations, if one doesn’t interrupt to talk, one ain’t gonna talk – and that happens with me a lot.  Typical group social events, e.g. I go to an event of about 50 folks, where I more-or-less no none of them, and most there also don’t know anyone else, or hardly anyone else … yeah, I end up spending the vast majority of the time, by myself, talking to no one, and no one talking to me … not that I wouldn’t want to be conversing, but mostly just doesn’t happen.  And when I look around in such a situation, I’m quite the minority.  There may occasionally be a very few others similar in that regard, but it’s typically an exceedingly small number/percentage – figure well under 5%.  Well, for better or worse, I’m typically well within that much less than 5%  Other typical scenario, modest group (say 6 total) of folks I know semi-well – e.g. some coworkers.  Hanging out, talking/conversing and … typically, I’m generally silent most or all the time.  Again, not that I don’t want to say anything; usually just a matter of poor timing and not being sufficiently assertive (and/or impolite) to interrupt.  So, by the time I’m set to say something, it’s no longer timely or sufficiently appropriate – so I don’t talk.  Or I never get opportunity, without interrupting – so I don’t.  I know, e.g., some coworker(s) have quite remarked on the rather rare occasion when I did speak – perhaps to call attention to its relative rarity – but to also encourage the other coworkers to shut up and listen for a change, rather than flap their jaws with never a moment’s silence among them.
• communication style – perhaps more so now, but I’m getting some (presumably) good feedback on that.  And, much like my writing, my verbal communication also quite similarly sucks, … actually, probably – almost assuredly – sucks even much worse than my writing.  See, with my writing, you’re spared the most raw direct stream-of-consciousness form.  You get the generally edited after-the-fact version – often reedited many times and substantially revised, reorganized, shuffled around, cleaned up, etc., and … it still qutie sucks.  Well, the verbal … uhm, … yeah, … lots more sucky than the writing.  Generally exception would be my pontification upon some subject area I’m well versed in – that I can do, and comes out quite “organized” … pro’lly cause my head’s already been over the material hundreds or thousands of times or more (often ’cause I use it “all the time”, or at least quite commonly/frequently).  But, try to talk about, oh, what I’m thinking or feeling, generally, of the top-of-my-head, or likewise reaction or thoughts on something I’d not been exposed to before.  Uhm, yeah.  The form it comes out in … though it works well for some (a small but non-trivial minority), for most, it rather to quite sucks.  They find it (and can’t say I blame them) distracting, relatively unorganized, too many qualifications, exceptions, conditionals, much etc. – I dunno exactly how to best describe it, but hopefully you get the general idea of what I’m attempting to describe.  So, yeah, that tends to work rather to quite ineffectively with most people – though there are significant exceptions.  And I don’t know if it’s feasible for me to change that – or at least significantly/usefully so.  In writing I can do it – fix it, clean it up.  I know (more-or-less) how to do that.  But even with the writing, at least for me, it’s an exceedingly burdensome task to do or attempt to do that.  E.g. it’ll take me about 5 to 10 or more times the effort/time/resources to do such reediting/rewriting/clean-up of my writing – so often it’s just not worth doing or attempting to do – or at least not very much, anyway.  Okay, so maybe this time around you’re not getting a significantly re(rererere)edited version – not that that would improve it a whole helluva lot anyway.  Especially if it’s just gonna be read/skimmed once by one person, and then discarded or never reread – even if it was written highly well the first time they read my writing.  So, yeah, my style quite sucks on that.  “Fixable” in written form (with inordinately large amounts of time/energy/effort).  Another thing that, in written form, make it highly taxing for me to correct/edit, well, a couple of things.  First of all, since it’s rather to quite poorly written to start with, it’s hard for even me to read it, when I wrote it!  That makes it very difficult, and despite that I typically know quite what the author had in mind.  So, yeah, how it’s written/drafted, is hard and distracting for even me too, to read it.  And other things that make it especially hard for dealing with written form, and revising it – my head tends to know exactly what I wanted to communicate – so it tends to quite follow that train of thought – which may be rather to quite different than what actually got written.  My head also tends to go off on tangents, again, quite ignoring what’s actually written.  My head tends to not pay attention to what I have written, as it already quite presumes it knows what the intended communication was, and finds reading some written attempt at it to be an inferior source of information, and redundant to what’s already know.  And also making it very hard – sometimes exceedingly so, given those circumstances, my reading, and rereading it, especially when I try and focus my attention on what I actually wrote – tends to bore my head to death – so much so it’ll often tend to have me drift off to sleep … and not for lack of sleep – no matter how much sleep I got prior to such.  I could get 10 or more hours sleep the two nights before, then read some of my own writing in the middle of the morning, and my head will be nodding off highly repeatedly, over, and over, and over again (yeah, redundant … empahsis).  In verbal form?  I don’t know that I can “fix” that, or even come close.  Perhaps because it runs close to how I think, and stuff first comes out (and even how it mostly subsequently comes out).  I really don’t think I could so radically change how I think, such that the verbal communication would come out much better – or even significantly different – the first time around.  So, yeah, can be quite “taxing” for others to listen to.  Also, at least in part … not only honesty and the like, but precision.  Career, etc., I tend to be precise in how I say things – it is often important, if not critical.  So that tends to go to my more general writing, and also speaking.  My statements tend to be highly factually accurate.  And in most/many cases, that “needs” a lot of qualification, caveats, exceptions, etc.  So, while perhaps useful, even important, in many cases in, e.g. my professional work (and similar contexts), can be … uh, a significant encumbrance in more general (e.g. social/casual) circumstances/constructs.  But, … it’s not like some switch I can just turn on and off – certain at least not something I’ve figured our or learned how to do, anyway.  In many regards, mybe I’m just “hard wired” that way – quite the general way I “think” and stuff comes out, and it’s not feasible to change?  Or, maybe it’s changeable with practice.  Lots of practice.  But I’ve highly no audience (not even an audience of one) to have a conversation with.  Where the hell would I get sufficient regular and quite repeated feedback to have even a fighting chance of improving that?  So, perhaps far too late to significantly change that … even if it were otherwise possible.
  
• Hmmm, maybe there aren’t “all that many” ways/areas where my communication highly sucks (list seems of few items, but long items.)  But they are major areas with highly broad scope, and quite critical in their impacts and failures (certainly critical to me).  May also be lots of additional ways/areas in which and how it’s failing, but I’m just not aware – most notably of why.  As I did say, I’m relatively clueless on much of this.  I guess the Reader’s Digest version on the failures would read something more like: sucks at social, style, eye contact; and significantly more so with those failings in group situations; limited exception areas of relative “success”.

So, something(s) goe(s) very wrong.  Something’s the matter – but what?  And can it be “fixed”?  So, yes, me, communicating, highly sucks/fails on several major fronts, and I really don’t particularly know why, other than those modest bits of information I point out.  Whole lot of motivation/interest/desire to “connect”, and mostly, highly, does not happen – mostly doesn’t even come close.  And that’s far far far too often – nearly always the case with me.

Tools, techniques, training, practice.  Ah, but there are methods, techniques, tools, training – lots of stuff to improve one’s communication!  Uhm, yeah, … “been there, done that”.  And not some random fad stuff either, good, well founded, more-or-less mainstream recommended best practices/techniques/training/etc.  And, … results?  A lot of time, effort, resource, practice, etc.  And much of it quite hard for me (much of it not easy for me to do – not my “natural” way of doing things, so takes lots of hard continuing focus/attention to do what should be much more optimal communication).  So, yes, been there, done that.  But results?  For all that?  Other than being a whole helluva lot harder for me to do, and boosting my mood/confidence some modest bit, the results, at least as far as I can perceive, or any net result I actually care about … the difference has been somewhere between negligible and zero.  So, it’s “obviously” not working for me – or certainly at least not very well at all – at least not any noteworthy or significant difference (other than making it a bit less painful – while at the same time a whole lot more hard).  I dunno, maybe the “wrong” approach or training or “practice”, or maybe it’s aimed at the “wrong thing”?  Maybe it could be “fixed” if it were known much more accurately what goes wrong and is not working.  Perhaps not so useful to try and fix, e.g. group social interaction, by having a one-on-one conversation (which I do relatively well at) telling me how to fix my group social interaction (especially with absolutely zero observation of my group social interaction – perhaps a highly flawed approach – trying to fix what’s not at all observed, but trying to extrapolate from fairly unrelated observations).  I dunno, I’d sure as heck very much like something that actually worked, and worked dang well.  But perhaps before that’s even feasible, it needs to be known/understood why things aren’t and haven’t been working.  Otherwise, isn’t one trying to “fix” what might not even be the problem to start with?  If I can’t see what the problem is, how am I gonna tell you what the problem is and you tell me to fix it – especially when you aren’t even there to witness it?  Seems like a hazardously poorly targeted approach.

Perhaps a significant – maybe even quite substantial – part of it, is, for the most part, I don’t like group social situations or interactions.  They generally tend to make me feel rather to quite uncomfortable.  Maybe sometimes I can more-or-less tolerate them or feel “okay” with them.  But like them?  Generally not the situations I want to be in – though I often put/push myself to be in them, or am more-or-less stuck in needing to deal with them regardless.  And, if I were a great social communicator, would I like group social situations?  Interesting question, but my guestimate, is I probably still wouldn’t like ’em.  I highly prefer one-on-one.  My inclination in group – no mater how comfortable I am or may be in group situation, is to be able to separate out and be one-on-one, and not stay within the group.  Why is that, why do I feel that way?  I don’t know – nature of who/how I am, and/or life experience and such?  I’m guestimating more of the former than the latter.  But don’t really know enough of early developmental history to know if that was ever different, or if something(s) may have significantly changed that at some point along the way.  And, unfortunately, most of the more common routes to one-on-one, are via group.  It’s almost/rather (if not quite effectively so), as if one typically needs “group approval” (consensus, or at least plurality), before one-on-one – as in peeled off from the group, becomes a possibility – or at least reasonable probability.

Not all that long ago, someone close to me, remarked on my blogging, terming it, if not literally, at least effectively, a “hobby”. I thought that quite the misnomer. I later replied, privately to that person, including:

At the same time, it’s hard.  Hard for me to blog.  Not that I don’t have the “gift”(/curse?) of ramble, but not especially easy for me to do.  Most notably the relatively little interaction/feedback.  Not that I’m complaining, or certainly not faulting, or anything like that.  Not at all.  Just sayin’, … that’s all.  Definitely not a hobby, or even “interest” – the writing/blogging.  Perhaps in rather to quite different context it could or might be?  But, “this” – my three sets of blogs here … it’s more like … “necessary outlet” – notably for lack of anything better available to me.  Just is how it is.  That’s all.  Just sayin’.

So, yeah, whole helluva lot I’d much prefer to blogging.  Most notably having good – even just reasonable – conversation with someone I actually liked and more-or-less reasonably trusted and felt reasonably comfortable with, and hopefully even at least semi-reasonably actually cared for me – or could at least fake it enough that I thought or felt that was the case.  Well, I ain’t got that, nor anything even particularly close to that.  So, for lack of better – really, as it’s got nowhere else to go, it goes to blog – maybe as something of bit of (psychological) survival – an outlet, expression/expressing, “venting”, hoping, dreaming, fearing – at least some place for some slight bits of that to go … as opposed to quite precisely nowhere, and totally unheard – not that it’s exactly heard a whole helluva lot or much or by many here.  And “conversation” or dialog – from blog?  Well, not to be blaming, nor even expecting such from here, but, yeah, that “feedback” is mostly pretty minimal to non-existent.  I do appreciate what bits are there, but, there’s not much there, and I’ve quite realized that, at least for the most part, I really shouldn’t be looking for or expecting that from here.  If I happen to get it, great.  But most of the time I should expect it just ain’t gonna happen.

And, I can not only think of a whole helluva lot I’d prefer to do over blogging, but a whole helluva lot of difficult, arduous – even painful tasks – that I’d prefer to do over blogging.  So, to say or imply this is “easy” – no, not at all.  Just less painful than being absolutely completely silent and unheard; or speaking and being completely and totally ignored and unheard – either feels about as damn isolating/isolated disconnected, and unwanted, uncared for, and ignored.  (What it is, and what it feels like, may not be exactly or particularly the same, but, regardless, that’s what it feels like – at least to me).  So, yeah, sometimes I put off blogging stuff ’cause it friggin’ hurts.  And then I blog it anyway – and it doesn’t exactly feel better.

Not that it’s all doom and gloom and always feels like sh*t and is “always” that hard to blog, but much/most of the time it is.  Whole lot of the time I’d really like to just be able to actually have a f*cking conversation with someone – but ain’t nobody there, continues to be nobody there, so said hypothetical conversation continues to not be an option, or even particularly close to one.  So to the blog it goes … or it goes nowhere (which is often the case … really can only blog so much; not only hard, but too, quite the resource burn for me – takes a lot of time and energy for me to do it).

Blogging is hard for me.  Yes, much of this material, and quite a bit that I’ve blogged, it’s hard for me to put out there – especially (even pseudo-anonymously) “to the world”, or even to some quite trusted few, or even one.  Hard in several ways – and, trying not to be too horribly redundant.  Hard in the (mostly) lack of feedback.  Hard in the effectively total lack of conversation and immediacy.  How the hell am I gonna improve in my social conversations if I never (or hardly ever) have any?  Dang hard in the writing and editing and rerereediging and revising, etc.  Burns a lot of time/resource for me.  It’s not like I’m some well practiced prolific writer that easily just cranks the stuff out in quite good form to start with.  In the last … well, let’s say about week (precise span doesn’t matter) – cranked out fair bit of blogging within that span (this, plus two other blogs, and multiple items).  Let’s just look at word efficiency and time.  I spend a lot of time and attention on this (in some major chunks, a few times, over about a week).  So, a fair (marginal) typist types 40 words-per-minute (WPM).  I type up to about a sustained 60 WPM.  I forget what people typically talk at, but it’s much higher, I think … let’s say 140 WPM.  If it’s balanced and bidirectional, say cut that in half, for a fairly “flowing” bidirectional conversation – 70 WPM.  How many hours have I put into this stuff in the last approximately week?  About 20 hours total (probably quite the underestimate, but, whatever).  How many “words” (using the rather standard WPM count of 5 characters per “word”) … let me add them up … 55,896 characters, 11,179 “words”.  So, in a relatively balanced bidirectional conversation, that’d be about … less than 3 hours conversation – with each contributing that much, or less than 90 minutes were it a “monologue” of a “conversation”.  “Instead”, it’s around 20 or more hours of my life, a lot of time and energy and resources, mostly just “gone”.  And, at that rate of 11,179 words per 20 hours, that’d be a typing rate of … 9.3 WPM, or … not even one character per second … about 1 character every 1.3 seconds.  Close to 10 times as slow as twice as much (a bidirectional) conversation.  And of course lacks most all that interaction/feedback, and of course immediacy.  Yeah, definitely not a “hobby”, or anything close.  Really quite and almost only for lack of anything better to fill that void, quite hard, often damn hard, and … sometimes rather to quite painful too.  And very horribly inefficient use of my time, but, egad, for friggin’ lack of anything better.

And so it goes.  For all the time/work/energy/resource into it, and so little from it, I oft find myself quite thinking, maybe I ought best just give up and not try – so much into it, so little out, why bother?  Maybe just “quit”.  Not really even bother attempting to communicate, “connect”, have or make friends, relationship(s), etc. – so dang little to show for it anyway.  Maybe just give up on all that, and learn to be “okay” with it – live alone, be alone, don’t connect, don’t much communicate, die alone – whatever.  So, yeah, sure, that alone – no touch, no connection, no communication, stats aren’t so good – die sooner. Whatever.  Life, sh*t happens.  We all die sooner or later anyway.  Why keep fighting a battle I seem both unable to “win”, and unable to make any significant useful forward progress?  Just do work ‘n sh*t like that, and give up trying to “connect” … ever.  Fine person I am, but really, who the hell wants me anyway?  Who the heck even knows – hardly anybody.  Such a waste – could be highly useful and advantageous to someone(s), but guess maybe “they” will never know, if they can’t friggin’ figure it out and I can’t friggin’ figure out how to get ’em to actually know me either.  “Oh well”.

And here I sit, contemplating the “Publish” button.  Do I click it?  do I really want to post this?  Hard, painful, exposing, vulnerable, blah, blah.  And will it make a damn bit of difference?  Probably none, or close to it.  What the hell … <click>