Welcome back, class. In this lecture we’re going to get kind of meta. We’re going to talk about communication. What is effective, what’s really not, and how to go from one to the other. We’ve touched on communication before, in both Jealousy, and Hard Conversations, but now it’s time to look at it on its own. Whole books have been written on this subject, so this short podcast episode is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a start.

Communication is, at its heart, the act of conveying what is in your head to another living thing. Talking, writing, drawing, signing, etc are all trying to get across a concept from your head to someone else’s. Relationships live or die by their communication. If you can not communicate with your friends and loved ones you can’t convey your needs, or your understanding of theirs, or your appreciation of them, or accept their appreciation of you.

100% complete and accurate communication is, ultimately, impossible.

Wait, what?

It’s true. You will never, no matter how hard you try, be able to convey precisely what you mean to someone else. This is because we all filter everything we see, hear, and read through our own life experiences. Someone who has had gifts tied to being abused will feel hesitant and uncomfortable if you give them something unexpected, whereas you tie getting gifts to things like birthdays or happy childhood memories for example. We can never fully remove these filters, but we can try to mitigate the misunderstandings they cause.

There is a school of thought that, so long as everyone involved is communicating the same way, all styles of communication are equal. If both people are passive communicators, preferring to deal in hints and insinuations rather than outright asking for what they’d like, then they’re likely to understand each other just as well as people who are direct communicators.

While I can see the argument, how do you know how the other person communicates without screwing up a bunch of times? If you are a direct communicator your friend saying “wouldn’t it be nice to visit the little book shop on flower street?” means just that. It seems like a nice place to go. Whereas to the passive communicator that’s asking to go there with you. They assume you understood, you assume you did too, but you both get different meanings. Then six months later your friend is crying that you never listen to or support them, and you’re confused because you were sure you had been.

So let’s talk communication styles, love languages, and apology languages. This will help you recognize them in the people you’re communicating with, and be able to get through to them more effectively.

There are two main communication styles; passive and direct. I’m not going to beat around the bush here. Direct is better. But we’re going to talk about both regardless. We’ll start with passive.

Passive communication relies on hints, insinuations, and subtle manipulation. It requires the other party to read between the lines to pick up on what you don’t say in order to get your meaning. So leaving a magazine open to a page talking about weddings of the rich and famous, rather than outright discussing marriage. Or talking about how Monica and Cam just moved in together, even though they’ve been together much less time than you and your partner. Or mentioning the month your birthday is in and how much you love seafood.

This sort of communication is tempting. For many of us it’s a survival technique. Outright asking for something can be seen as greedy, or impolite, so it’s better to just hope whomever you’re talking to gets the picture without you having to outright say it. Or in an abusive situation it’s easier to hint and hope the other person feels like they came up with the idea on their own.

The biggest problem with passive communication is the inevitability of misunderstanding and hurt. You may feel like you are being painfully clear when you tell your sister in law you wish you had a year off from hosting Thanksgiving dinner, but she doesn’t offer to take it over. This feels like rejection, like she is ignoring your needs and just expecting you to continue doing it even though she knows it’s hard on you. Except she doesn’t know. Because you didn’t tell her, or ask her to take it over. You made a wistful statement that didn’t actually ask for anything from her.

So how do we remove that? Direct communication. Say exactly what you mean, what you want, no hints, no deflecting, and tell your friends and family that this is what you will respond to. And then the hard part, do that. Don’t take hints, respond exactly to what was said, not the subtext, and tell them exactly what you mean. This is difficult and relies a lot on you willing to be vulnerable and remove your ability to hide behind subtext. There is a long learning curve here too if you’re used to communicating passively. It takes a lot of practice to get comfortable just saying what you need or want, especially for folks who are femme presenting or were raised with passive communication styles. But it is worth it in the end, trust me. I’ve spent years getting here.

Wait, what about love languages? And their less talked about counterpart apology languages? Aren’t these indirect forms of communication?

Yes. Yes they are. But they are only trying to communicate one of two things: I appreciate you OR I messed up and I’m sorry. Which means there’s very little room for misunderstanding provided you know what language the other person speaks.

So lets go over these. The different love languages are:

Verbal:

This is the easiest to recognize. Someone tells you that they love you, care about you, ect. This is also includes things like “get there safe” “did you remember to eat?” ect.

Gifts:

This is when someone expresses their affection by giving things. Think coffee, or flowers, or the the little trinket that made them think of you.

Service:

Expressing care by doing things. Changing your oil, doing the dishes, running that errand you hate, making dinner. It’s doing things without being asked.

Touch:

Physical touch. Someone expressing care by hand holding, or sharing close physical space. Think a cat, when they like you they want to be near you.

And last but not least Time:

This one is the hardest to quantify because it’s the hardest to see. But it’s making time for you, or making things for you. Time is precious, we’re all pressed for it, so this person’s way of expressing care is to give you a lot of theirs.

It’s important to understand not only which one you speak, but which one those around you speak. If your love language is service, but your partner uses time, you may both be feeling like the other doesn’t care about you. The easiest way to understand is, you guessed it class, directly communicating “I express care by doing things for you unasked. How do you express care?”

Now for apology languages. It’s important to learn what language the person you’re apologizing to favors, since them understanding is more important than your intention when it comes to apologies.

These are:

-Expressing regret:
“I am sorry.”

-Accepting responsibility:
“I made a mistake.”

-Making restitution:

“Can I make this up to you? If so how?”

-Repentening:

“I will not do that again, I’ve learned better.”

-Requesting forgiveness:
“Can you forgive me?”

I’ve found for most people a good apology includes multiple elements, but it is vital to understand which one will speak most to the person you’ve hurt. And if you’ve hurt several people your apology will need to encompass every kind of apology language to cover all your bases. Remember, no matter what your apology language it needs to come with actual sincerity and a determined attempt not to do the harmful thing again. You can’t just say sorry, or buy flowers, or ask for forgiveness, then do the same thing. That’s not how effective apologies work.

So given that I started this lecture with ‘perfect communication is impossible’ lets talk about what to do when you inevitably screw up. Because everyone screws up, no matter how careful they are.

When told ‘hey that hurt me’ or ‘this could have been said better’ the first step is to stomp on that little voice in your head that wants to defend your actions and take a look at why the other person is telling you this.

Did you say something that has implications you didn’t consider/hadn’t thought of?

Are they coming from a life experience where what you’re saying is harmful?

Did you say something that is actively harmful and just thought you’d get away with it?

Or (least likely): are they just an asshole?

Let’s start with the least likely option: they are just an asshole.

This only really comes into play when they are on the higher end of a power differential. For example a woman saying “men are trash” and a man nearby responding with “not all men”. Or “black lives matter” / “All lives or blue lives matter” or Pride vs “straight pride”. The person responding in hurt is having a part of themselves that they don’t normally have to think about or be aware of challenged by someone who doesn’t have the luxury to not take it into consideration. They’re used to being the default, and it’s uncomfortable to be reminded that default is not the only setting. The best course of action here is to just say “ok” and keep doing what you’re doing. You don’t owe them an education in power differences, they can google that shit.

Did you say something that has implications you didn’t consider/hadn’t thought of?

It happens. Thank the person for pointing it out, apologize, and try to do better next time now that you know better.

Are they coming for a life experience where what you’re saying is harmful?

Look at the person who called you out on your view. Did you use a word that has been used as a slur against part of their identity to describe something? For a relatively low stakes example, did you call your boss batshit in front of someone who is mentally ill? This is a call to look at your language and figure out where the words you use to insult things actually come from. Trust me, language is fluid. You can find words to express just how utterly, unbelievably, incomprehensible something is without insulting folks around you by making them the butt of the joke.

Did you say something you knew was harmful and think you’d get away with it?

Just apologize. You know you did wrong, don’t hide behind “I was joking” or “lighten up”. You knew it was inappropriate and the person calling you out has every right to do so.

Because perfect communication is effectively impossible it is not the goal. The goal is mutual understanding, without causing unintentional harm. I won’t say ‘without causing harm’ because sometimes someone just needs a verbal smack down and those always hurt, but you should be striving for communication that makes your intentions known and understood, without causing collateral damage.

That’s all for this lecture class. Until next time, have fun and stay safe.