Misunderstood?

Note: Writing this made me think of a quote Google tells me is a Bette Midler line from Beaches which I'm not sure I even saw. It's a pretty good summation of how (self-centered) I feel these days: "Enough about me, what do *you* think about me?"

A while back I read a description of a personality "type," like a Myers-Briggs kind of thing, that said certain people were often misunderstood. It was a description meant for me. I said, "Yup, uh huh, I get that all the time." Negotiating my relationship with my Mother, my husband, and my friends lately it's become even more clear to me that my perception of my communications -- what I'm so sure people understand -- are way, way off base.

This week I've been considering my strong skills communicating with children. I'm very, very good at it. I understand what they are trying to say and I can speak to them in ways they understand. I can distill the essence of a concept and convert it into language children grasp. If I'm with an adult and a child, I tend to talk with the child a lot more than most adults. I do this in part because I'm very bothered by the way our culture talks over children. But I realized I also do it because I'm better at it than I am talking with adults.

With adults I often find myself feeling as if I'm floundering. Fish out of water and all. I'm blunt and to the point, impatient with small talk (as I've blogged about before). I ask probing and personal questions because that is what interests me and that throws the usual adult banter out of whack. Though it does typically lead to interesting conversations. I could go on describing myself and my communication style but it turns out…

I'm totally wrong.

Or, rather, I'm misunderstood. I don't mean it in that "oh, poor misunderstood me," kind of way.

I mean, for example, my perception that I've been a hyper-controlling jerk to my husband for a long time… he says he doesn't think I'm controlling. Or when I apologize for being super bitchy to a friend when she comes to pick up her daughter, she looks at me, puzzled, because she didn't think I was. Or when I comment on how frazzled and out of it I was when I…could't find my phone/locked myself out of somewhere/whatever disorganized thing I might do…and someone near me says they thought I seemed like I had it all together.

I used to write a blog called "It's All About Me!" because I found my tendency towards introspection ridiculously self-absorbed. I mocked myself with that title. The title of this blog is "It's All About We!" because it's relationships between people that make life worth living. It's We, not Me, I've found most interesting in the past many years. In the past few months, though, I've returned to the state of self-reflection. Experiences and situations in my life have forced me to look at myself with a magnifying glass again like I did in the late 90s (when I had that first blog). What I have uncovered is nothing is at all what it seems.

It's as if I'm walking around thinking I'm wearing a beige business suit and everyone around me sees a rainbow glitter tutu. Switch that. I think I'm in the outlandish outfit and they think I'm polished and professional. Or I'm sure I seem like I've not a brain in my head and other people perceive me as competent. Or I'm clearly stating an opinion or relaying information and within moments it becomes clear the person I'm speaking to is only puzzled. I'm likely to walk away from a conversation thinking we've sorted something out only to find what I thought we agreed on didn't land on my friend's radar.

But get me in a room with children and everyone makes sense and they all seem to know just what I'm saying.

I've said on this blog before that I have good social skills. I still believe that's true. Odd and quirky though I may be, blurting out comments or questions, I do just fine with people. It's just becoming more and more apparent that my skills at taking what goes on inside my brain and doling it out in doses that come close to my intended meaning isn't happening as much as I thought it was.

I expect that's part of why being around people exhausts me. Translating what's going on in the clouds of my mind using verbal skills feels a bit like trying to put water back into a leaking bucket through the spurting hole. When a good friend said to me a few says ago, "I think you think you're more understood than you usually are," I'm realizing they were right. It was his contention that I am seeking to be understood. That may be true. My gut tells me, though, that it's not possible. What goes on inside my mind doesn't make much sense unless I break it down to a child-like simplicity. That's what I'm trying to do here.

See, though, how it twists and turns like a water snake writhing to get away?

Then again, you probably don't.



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