Communication

I recently read a very sad story on Gizmodo (The Story of the Lonely Whale).

Human voices have a range of 80 - 1100 Hz.  Whales have much deeper voices, the better to carry long distances.  Most baleen whales in particular speak in the 12 - 25Hz range.

But there is one lonely baleen whale, that the story called Alice.  Alice has an unusually high voice for a whale,  she speaks at 51.75 Hz.   So none of the other whales can hear her (or perhaps they hear her but don't understand).  Being effectively mute is far worse for a whale - they don't have books, texting, etc.   Her tale is very sad.  She lives her life alone.

Communication is key to relations - for humans as well as whales.  You would think humans would have it a lot easier.  We have so many ways to communicate.

Communication is important not because you need to be 'communication compatible', but because it maintains the relationship.  It is one of the easier things to fix and the better communicator has the responsibility to do the fixing.   There are many hard issues that can and will break up a relationship - money, kids (or the lack of kids), infidelity, among them.  But if your relationship breaks up because of poor communication, then shame on you both.

This is particularly important for people that don't get into a lot of relationships.  Whether you go on few dates, or go on many first dates but not a lot of 5th dates, the problem is the same.  You don't have a lot of experience and communication gets better with practice.

Most relationships have communication problems.  As you may have noticed, I have a running theme of blaming both men and women equally for things, and this is no exception.   For every man that stereotypically refuses to talk, there is a woman mad at her man for not reading her mind.

But guess what, this blog post is not blaming the poor communicator.  Yes, some guy won't talk about their feelings and yes some women expect men to read minds.  Instead this post is blaming the person with good communication skills.  Communication is a skill, not a talent.  If you don't know how to ski, you get yourself a ski instructor, you don't try to teach yourself.

If your significant other has poor communication skills, then it is up to you to fix the problem.  If you have better communication skills then you need to use them and/or teach your mate those skills.  You can't just blame them and leave.   I once dated a beautiful young woman from Haiti and broke up with her because she lacked communication skills.  At the time I blamed her.   Years later I realized that I should have worked harder to fix the issue instead of just giving up.  It was my fault for not trying harder.   I had the skills I should have taught her.

What if neither of you have good communication skills?  Take some classes or get some therapy.  Therapy is almost all about communication.  Most of it consists of learning to talk about things you don't want to talk about.

Communication is a skill, not a talent.  That means you can improve your communication skills, as opposed to being stuck with what you got.    The better you get at communication, the easier your successful relationships will be. Now, that may mean you end your bad relationships earlier, but frankly that is probably for the best anyway.