I just wrote something and the following stood out for me. I realized that it was true in so many cases not just what I was writing about. So I figured I would share and put it with my other insights into myself.
“It makes me feel so good to get a straight answer even if it is the opposite of what I want to hear. Because it means I can let go, I don’t have to keep trying anymore and I can move onto something else that will actually work.”
I hear you. I’ve pursued plenty of women who seemed afraid to simply say “no” — they didn’t understand that I could just nod and move on to the next possible romance if I didn’t have a chance with them.
And it isn’t only romance. It comes up with friends and watching a video. There are just so many places in my life this enters; work, friends; romance, any time another person is involved. The answer could ever really hurt me and it would still feel good to hear it. I was so amazed by how universal it was for me that I had to post it.
For me, I often feel I have to explain to people who are so worried about disappointing me that I would rather hear the truth, no matter how disappointing, and be free to move on then continue to be strung along.
I also have friends who will tell me no, for example, but spend way too much time apologizing for doing so.
Oh, and I can attest to Devon’s being cool with moving on when told directly, and with staying friends with that person even.
Being direct can be a tremendously difficult thing for people and the reasons are legion. You never really know who can take it and who can’t and worse still indirect people will not let you know that they can’t take it. Complicate that further with everyone having different sensitivities. Each of us can handle directness on some subjects, but not others.
I have had my self caught be surprise on both sides of that issue. Inviting people to be direct and being surprised and my reaction and being invited to be direct only to have it blow up in my face. So even the vary act of telling people to be direct is not consistent.
We have not even begun to address the difficulties of dealing with people who, either through culture, circumstance or conditioning are simply completely incapable of being or handling directness.
Oh and to make it just one shade more obtuse, everyone’s definition of direct is different. So what one person thinks is straight forward another person will consider oblique and vice versa.
The problem stated in the first paragraph tangles us all up. It is one of the things that I treasure most about my dear friends that we don’t need to look through that veil at each other.
Yes indeed – you have me with you on this one.
It has implications all over the place, at home work and with family. I am terrible at second and third guessing and because I know I am bad at it that is just the thing that makes me go around the bend. I wish that it would laid on me as truth, no worrying about if I can take it or some other pussyfooting about. I can take care of my reactions – what I can’t do is read through the mazes that are thrown at me sometimes.