Chasing 20 minutes

I was talking with a friend a couple of weeks ago and I discovered how much internet dating and job hunting have in common. Having enjoyed(?) both endeavors, it all boils down to packaging oneself in such a way that someone reading your profile or resume will want to meet you to delve into the possibilities further. And, more likely than not, you will miss the secret words and be dismissed out of hand.

In an internet dating profile, you have one paragraph to interest the other person enough for them to even read further. Of course, if your photo doesn't fit their ideal of the 'perfect' person, then you won't even get them as far as the first paragraph in most cases. If you can get them to paragraph two, you have to pack as much information about yourself as possible into as few words as possible for them to even consider sending you a short message. Then, always mindful of the secret words that you don't know, you may write back and forth for a bit until one or the other actually suggests a cup of coffee. Then you are off for your nerve-wracking interview. It is very hard not to feel piles of rejection, even if you aren't particularly interested in the person.

I tried to remain fairly open minded in looking at profiles. Height, occupation, visuals were not show stoppers for me. I did eliminate people whose profiles indicated wildly different outlooks than mine, but I avoided only looking at the tall, dark and handsome sorts in favor of good and interesting men.

I was amazed at what sort of men cropped up and how quickly they made decisions without knowing anything about me. I'm no spring chicken, but I don't scare small children or animals either. And I clean up pretty good. One of the worst ones was a garbage collector who wanted to meet for dinner. As he walked up, I noticed he had immediately decided against spending any time getting to know me. This was confirmed when he said, "why don't we just go across the street and have coffee?" Rejection. And from a garbage man? That one hurt, even though I wasn't all that interested yet. I always figured it would take some time to get to know someone before you could be interested. Silly me. There were several who I rejected out of hand because either they began touching WAY too early, like the first 15 minutes, or their first topic of conversation was sex. Not that I'm not a fan of both things, but not with just anybody and certainly not less than 30 minutes into it.

Out of all the men I met through on-line dating, only one engaged me in conversation from the very beginning and truly wanted to get to know me as much as I wanted to get to know him. Needless to say, he is the one I am with for the long haul.

Job hunting is pretty much the same. You have one or two pages to put down all the right words on your resume so that you may be deemed worthy of an interview for a job. Of course, in all likelihood, the person who is looking at your resume is working in the human resources department, knows very little about the actual job and is scanning for 'secret words'. If the magical words aren't there, it doesn't matter how capable you are, the hiring manager will never see your resume and you won't be seriously considered for the job.

I've applied for jobs whose description did all but say "and your name must be Natalie"; I was so clearly qualified for the position. But I apparently either didn't use the right magic words or they had only posted the job because they had to, having already decided who they wanted to hire. And, in most cases these days, you never hear anything at all from the company. They don't even send out 'drop dead' letters any more.

In both dating and job hunting, your friends and family will try to lessen the rejection with platitudes. "The right job (or man) is just waiting for you." "Clearly it wasn't where you are supposed to be." "He was obviously the wrong one." "There are more fish in the sea." True, as far as they go, but not comforting. What if it (or he) isn't just waiting? What if there isn't any place where you are supposed to be? Sure are more fish in the sea, but clearly my angling skills are not up to snuff. And, after too, too many rejections, the temptation to give up is high.

It all boils down to trying to package yourself so that someone will find you worthy of 20 minutes of their time. And I wonder, how did we allow ourselves to reduced to anonymous words on either a screen or resume? And why are people willing to make snap judgments about just about everything based on so very little?

Half of a century in, it feels as though people have become more distant from each other. I don't know if that is truly the case or if it is a regional difference between where I grew up and where I have lived most of my adult life. As a kid, I knew all the neighbors for several blocks around, at least on a nodding basis. Now, I don't even know all the people in my 13 apartment building. It was even worse when I lived in California. There it took the 1989 earthquake to even get a conversation going with the folks across the hall.

It also seems as though things have sped up considerably over the years. And that fact alone has to meddle with interpersonal connections. I swear nothing makes me want to scream more than "time is money." As if money is the most important thing in the world. I've certainly met people for whom it is, but I don't think that's most of us. And if I am correct, why are most of us allowing that hurry up, abbreviated mind set to dominate how we must deal with things and people? It might be extremely difficult to go against the flow, but if enough of us tried might we not turn the tide? What might happen if we give the person more than the 20 minutes they are desperately chasing? What if we gave them 30? We'd learn more. We'd be showing more respect. And we might just slow everything down to a more human speed. Could be it would be worth it to try.

Star Trek

I'm a little bit of a Star Trek geek. I don't have a pair of Spock ears nor have I studied Klingon grammar, but I do enjoy the various renditions of Star Trek that have appeared over the years. I even have some favorite episodes, although I generally call them 'that episode where X happened', rather than the title of the episode. And given a choice, Star Trek the Next Generation is my favorite. Why in the world am I telling you all of this? Well, it just so happened that my all-time favorite episode was on last night and I was happy at the prospect of seeing it again. This, naturally, made me start thinking about what it was that I liked about it.

My favorite episode of Star Trek the Next Generation (STTNG) is called Darmock. In this episode, Captain Picard encounters a race of people who speak in metaphors, metaphors that make no sense at all to our heroes. Great frustration ensues on both sides. Then the other captain, Dathan, beams himself and Picard down to the nearest planet. There they must join together to conquer a beast that would very much like to kill them both. To make a long story short, the two captains begin to communicate through their joint struggle for survival. Dathan, in the end, dies in the effort. To me, it is not just a story about cooperation, but also about the importance of truly listening and trying to communicate.

Obviously, it's extreme to risk death in order to communicate, but the various steps that were shown could be quite valuable in more mundane settings. They started out simply acknowledging that they did not understand each other. This, of course, led to some very hard work in listening, asking questions and looking for areas of agreement. Perhaps the Star Trek universe has the advantage in that there are so many different cultures and languages that no one makes too many assumptions about what the other is trying to get across. We who share a common language, rightly or wrongly, expect that the other person will understand clearly what we mean. This is probably inevitable to a great extent, but the addition of clarifying questions would go a long way towards fully understanding. After all, we all bring different experiences and/or different cultures to every situation we are in. We can't always assume we are speaking the same language in every sense of the word. Our words may be the same, but our understanding of them can be quite different.

Another aspect of their communication style is the fact that they shared stories with each other. This required a type of listening that did not mandate an immediate response. In this way, the listener had no other job than to listen and to try to understand. Any response prior to the end of the story would have been inappropriate if not downright rude. In the episode, the only thing the 'listener' said was, "Tell me more." This 'help me understand you' approach shows respect for the speaker and a real desire to truly connect with them. If we were to include a bit more of this approach in communicating with those around us, I'm willing to bet that the incidences of hurt feelings and anger would be reduced. It would be a good experiment to try in any event.

There was also very little to distract them from their attempt to communicate, except of course for that pesky beast. But aside from the fighting, the rest of the time they had nothing more pressing or distracting pulling at them. I have little doubt that our hectic, busy lives interfere in our efforts to connect and truly communicate with others. While it is true that it would be impossible to spend the time and effort necessary for that level of communication with absolutely everyone, there are times when I believe it is absolutely mandatory to try, especially with those who matter to us most. I have been fortunate to know a few people who truly want to do that level of listening. They are so restful to be around, partly because you can trust that they are engaged in the process every bit as much as you are. There isn't quite as much pressure on the speaker to cast about for multiple ways of communicating the same point. There is trust that any miscommunication will be dealt with with clarifying questions rather than angry accusations.

There also was little on the agenda for those two characters beyond communicating and surviving. Neither one of them was scanning each word or phrase for something to disagree with or to use against the other one. So much of our supposed listening devolves into plotting out our responses. How could I possibly listen to you if I am trying to come up with a witty remark or looking for someway to puncture your ideas? In work situations, the quick response is expected and there is very little room for communication beyond facts and figures. And I think that this need for speed bleeds over into our personal relationships, where it really doesn't belong. I doubt that this is intentional on anyone's part, but it happens far too often for it to be good for us.

In the Star Trek episode, an opening was made for a connection with another race and Captain Picard personally was touched by his connection with Dathan and his efforts. In real life, I think we could do a lot worse than creating openings between people and connecting on an emotional level. And in real life, we could also deepen and strengthen bonds with those around us. We could do a lot worse.

Assumptions and labels

If you ever want to see the entertaining sight of steam coming out of my ears, start slapping some labels on me. It never fails to get me hot under the collar and has ever since I was quite young. Whether it is a good label or a bad label, it almost never fails to chafe. I've known this about myself for a very long time, but I never parsed out the reasons why. It always leads to assumptions, which frequently are incorrect and can in turn lead to very unwelcome outcomes.

My first memories around this came from when I was 5 or 6 years old. I was introduced to someone, who leaned over and talked to me as if I were the village idiot simply because of my age. I don't remember who it was or what they said precisely, but I do remember fuming at the way I had been patronized. I'm sure that I couldn't have described it then beyond the fact that I didn't like being treated like a baby, but I clearly remember feeling insulted. Now the person obviously hadn't planned to insult me. It would have never occurred to them that it was even possible. They were merely acting out of their assumptions based on the label 'little girl' that I was carrying at the time. The same sort of things have happened throughout my life as the label has changed from 'girl' to 'young woman' to just plain 'female.' Depending on what assumptions are attached to the labels, my resultant response has ranged from slight annoyance to extreme irritation, especially if it has led to my being disregarded because of them.

At a slightly different angle, I find that I bristle when confronted with the assumption that I don't know my own mind or mean what I say. For the life of me, I can't figure out what purpose this might serve. In fact, I can't see anything but difficulties arising from that. Real fireworks can be seen whenever I hear the words, "you don't mean that." Given that I generally don't say things that I don't mean, this feels like it has to be some sort of self-serving position taken by the speaker. (Don't want to assume that, however.) This one rose up again recently when I decided to stop seeing someone. I meant what I said about not wanting to see him any more the first time I said it. And every time I repeated it for almost 5 months. And it makes me wonder why some people assume that 'A' means 'B' when 'A' is the only thing that has consistently been said. It seems like a sort of deliberate miscommunication, which kind of boggles the mind. It's difficult enough to communicate without making it more so.

I think my allergic reaction to labels increased in adulthood because of all the assumptions that were hung on labels that I more or less had accepted. I ran headlong into one of those right after I got married. All the people that I had hung out with, went to movies with, or just did regular things with, all assumed that I was no longer available. It blew my mind. I was immediately dropped from standing invitations and I had to chase folks down to clear up the matter. Apparently, I was supposed to be fused to my husband and not do anything on my own. This only increased once my sons were born. I had apparently disappeared and could not have a separate identity. That was an extremely difficult labeling assumption to dodge and, at times, I let myself get buried under it, which was truly unfair to everyone. Similar labels and assumptions came attached to my choice in jobs, education and spirituality. And they almost always missed the mark. The labels were too broad and the assumptions too all-encompassing to have any real meaning.

I have no clear idea why most of us, if not all, compartmentalize others based on assumptions. Perhaps it is nothing more than a sorting function in our brains to help us make a semblance of order out of the overwhelming possibilities that exist in our world. But the outcome of it can move well beyond the realm of irritation and cause real damage to our relationships and unnecessary stress in our lives. This can happen based on the labels we attach to others, or based on how we connect assumptions between different people. If one of our parents employed disapproving silences to control our behavior, we might assume that similar silences mean the same thing in other relationships. If someone in our past abused our trust with lies, we might assume that either no one is to be trusted or perhaps that everyone lies. If we have been manipulated in the past, we may believe that others are trying to do it to us again. The examples could go on and on. And how sad that is for all parties involved.

But what's to be done about it? I suspect a lot of it is done unconsciously, based on past experiences. And I imagine that a portion of that is done out of self-preservation and fear of repeating a bad experience. Perhaps the only thing we can try to do is to slow down and consider those around us, recognizing that they are unique in our experience. By being slow to assume, we don't need to risk ourselves unnecessarily, merely allow enough time for the other to reveal themselves in more depth, which in its turn could allow for more depth in the relationship we have with them. If we look at each new person with an active curiosity as to who they are, rather than quickly labeling and pigeonholing them, we open up new possibilities. And if we look at older relationships without the filter of assumptions, we give others the opportunity to reveal pleasant surprises about themselves. And, should we find things that we'd rather not see in them, at least we have a firmer basis for any decision we make.

"Assumptions are the termites of relationships." -- Henry Winkler.

Touch

"Touch is the meaning of being human." - Andrea Dworkin.

I don't know that touch is the entire meaning of being human, but it is certainly an important component. It is well known that infants who are not held and touched "fail to thrive" and, I believe, the same holds true for the rest of us, if in less obvious ways.

One of my teachers in massage school pointed out that touch is the one sense that is reciprocal. We can't touch someone else without feeling something of it ourselves. And it is a profound means of communication when words are totally inadequate in times of joy and grief. It transmits comfort and connection in ways that nothing else can. The words "I'm so sorry" take on added strength when the words are accompanied by a comforting touch. It provides tangible connection in situations where we might otherwise feel isolated.

So it seems odd that ours is such a touch-phobic society. Granted, in certain situations,it is wise to exercise caution and restraint, but those cases are not the ones I mean to explore here. It is a given that unwanted touch is always unacceptable; however, I think we've taken touch avoidance to some strange levels.

I imagine that the seed for this no-touch or limited-touch attitude can be laid at the feet of our Puritan ancestors. Despite the fact that these people had an astonishing rate of babies born within 6 or 7 months of weddings, their reputation and their self-image was one of extreme restraint. Add to that a liberal dose of Victorian prudery and we have a fertile ground for a huge taboo to grow.

Part of it can also be attributed to our litigious society. In this country we have an unhealthy habit of suing people and organizations over the least thing, which leads to absolutist regulations, or zero tolerance policies. Recently, I heard of a middle school that had issued a zero tolerance rule on touching, all touching. No one was to touch anyone for any reason. That included congratulatory hugs and couples holding hands. Obviously this policy was established to allow punishment for unacceptable touching and to safeguard the school in lawsuits, but it is truly a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Rather than teaching children to differentiate good, healthy touch from bad or illegal touch, we forbid them any touch at all. This will probably lead to fear and a skewed relationship with touch.

Another aspect is the fact that touch has been highly sexualized in our culture and often there is a misinterpretation of touch, as though it must have some ulterior motive. In many cases, the only touch some of us experience is in a sexual context which adds to our collective suspicions. But the elderly and the uncoupled need touch, just as much as their younger and mated counterparts and, all too often, they must do without any at all. I can't help but believe that this leads to a less obvious state of failing to thrive.

So, what's to be done? I don't for a second think that any of us can alter the centuries old societal taboos that have grown to the extreme in our culture. However, I do believe that we can incrementally subvert them in our own little corners of the world. And it is past time we regained healthy touch for ourselves.

Our subversion of the status quo can begin simply and in small ways. We can couple any words of comfort with a touch on the arm or a hug, showing greater connection to the person we're speaking to. When greeting or leaving friends, add a hug. Whenever you feel moved to reach out, and you know the recipient won't faint from shock, do so. Only by behaving as if touch is a normal part of relationship will we all come to see it as such. What's the worst that can happen? Some onlookers might disapprove, but doesn't that say more about them than you? You might get a reputation as a notorious hugger. But would that be such a terrible thing? And you will have given the gift of touch to someone else and yourself.

Technological Trip Ups

I’ll just come right out and admit it. I do not fully trust all the technological doo-dads that fill my life. I appreciate them, enjoy them and utilize them to the best of my ability, but I don’t really trust them.

I am old enough to remember when there were only 5 channels on the TV and to go from one to the next someone had to actually stand up, walk over to the set and turn the knob. Telephones were mounted on the wall or sat on a desk. Phone messages required a pen and paper. And if you weren’t at home, no one could contact you. Leftovers were reheated in the oven or on the top of the stove. Games had boards that you laid out on the table or the floor.

I’ve recently had a couple of technological trip ups that led me straight back to skepticism about the reliability of all our marvels. The first happened when I had forwarded a story that I had written to someone who had asked to read it. After a week had passed with no word and feeling a bit nervous that they had hated my story, I asked how they liked it. It never got there. Now, I know how to send e-mail just as well as anyone else, attachments included. But my story had just flown off into the ether somewhere, never to be seen again. I probably would have just written it off as weirdness in the Internet universe, but darned if it didn’t happen a few days later with a message to someone else. This made me doubt that other messages had reached their intended recipients.

The second event went unnoticed for almost two weeks. I had to replace my phone/answering machine the week after Christmas. The new one has so many bells and whistles that I was extremely careful in setting it up. However, I couldn’t help noticing that we had received absolutely no messages since it had been plugged in. Zero. Zip. Nada. So, brilliant girl that I am, I used my cell phone to call the house phone and leave a message. I hung up. The message light was flashing on the phone, but no message. After an hour of going through the not so thorough manual, I fiddled with how many rings before the message machine picks up. Apparently my new phone will record messages after four rings, but, if it is set for six rings, it tosses them into the great void.

Both of these incidents left me wondering if I had inadvertently snubbed someone, or several someones. There is absolutely no way for me to find out, but I wondered. I also got to thinking about how we’ve come to assume things about responses or lack of responses to all of our high tech communications. If there is no response to an e-mail, or a phone message, or a text message, what exactly does that imply? Does it imply anything? There seems to be a different expectation with the electronic messages than with more human based messages. Perhaps the more instantaneous messages make us lose our patience and expect instantaneous replies. And the silences between messages become uncomfortable more quickly than in the days when waiting was the usual expectation.

If there is no reply, does that mean the message wasn’t received? Or it was ignored? Or it landed in the spam folder? Or they don’t want to talk to you? The mind reels through the various possibilities and none of them are good. In the old days, we waited a “reasonable amount of time” before calling back or leaving a second message. But in our high-speed technologically enhanced world, what is a reasonable amount of time?

I’m already on record as being uncomfortable with the layers of technology intervening between humans. Even when communication happens, I feel like it is lacking. And when the technology acts up, it makes me even more uncomfortable. The only solution, I suppose, is to keep trying. But, just to make myself feel better, I think I’ll begin writing more letters. And, if you are expecting to hear from me and don’t, please try again.