Good ways to know when you have really messed up your relationship
On a more personal note,
Nero: I very much understand where you are coming from. I'm not sure what you mean, because you say "realize you have lied to", in the sense that perhaps
when you lied, you didn't know it wasn't true. That it was a realization that you changed your mind, more than that you consciously
deceived. I'd think that as well would probably take a lot of
courage to talk about as well, depending on the relationship.
Templeton: I'm sorry that you've had that experience: that you feel that you have to make other people work for information. Having ended not so long ago a relationship with somebody who did that
exact thing, I can definitely concur that it is
annoying and
frustrating. It's probably that, like you said, for most people it's not that they enjoy manipulating other people, but it's an
unconscious thing. The only way I personally could deal with the
games and
manipulation verbally and emotionally was to simply
play dumb. That if they wanted to tell me something, they had to spell it out,
clear as day, or I would
pretend not to understand.
Honestly, I think in part unless it was spelled out, I didn't understand because it was so
obscured. Although that certainly forced communication to be clear and open, it was a harsh and awkward opening, and in a way, my method was
equally as wrong...and those communication issues certainly (for me, at least), forced the end of that
relationship.
Maybe I'm a
communication whore, but I love a person with whom I can be utterly, blatantly, and completely
frank. That I can tell them (and definitely vice versa) what I think about them, other people, life, love, philsosophy-positive or negative-and they will simply take it as my
opinion and be willing to talk with me deeply. I love
constructive criticism. There exists a kind of comfort and
connection in that sort of communication, in that you need not worry what the other person is thinking, because they will tell you if it's
important. That there are no topics that can't be discussed, and everything can be opened up and
free. I don't pretend to know everything about myself either, and talking to other people about things I care about is as much a selfish desire to know myself as it is a selfish one to know them better. It could be that I am
incurably naive, or that perhaps other people have different needs, but for me, I need the kind of person who other people refer to as "
so blatantly honest as to be rude".