...from other people's lives? Are there things you can learn by watching other people make mistakes, live their lives, etc. such that you can apply those things in your own life without having to directly experience those things yourself?
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The answer for me is clearly yes. Being the introspective/analytical/observant person that I am, I am always trying to figure things out for myself from any of the things going on with my friends and myself, and always trying to figure out how I could have done that better, etc. I've been learning a lot from grey_duc and danno lately. Since they are both in relationships and I can talk to them a lot about communication and how they do things in their relationships, I'm hoping that I'm getting some tools to use in my own communication, and things to look for, things to say (or not) or ways to say things (or not).
However, some things don't translate. I can know the right things to do or say, or the things that I *want* to do or say, but that doesn't actually help me get the words out. It doesn't help me get over the lump in my throat, or my misgivings about putting myself out there and putting my feelings on the line. Knowing what I should do (no guts, no glory and all of that) doesn't suddenly give me the courage to do it.
I'm great at confrontation in my work life, but suck at it in my "real" life. I was able to tell someone at work last week that I didn't want to do his peer review because I couldn't in good conscience give him a good review and didn't think it was fair to him to give him a bad review without him knowing, and wanted to give him the opportunity to find another reviewer. And at work I'm getting good at finding the line of what to say - what's honest without being unnecessarily harsh, what's appropriate to say (and not), telling people about what I need (at least in concrete terms related to projects), telling people how we can/can't interact (if I tell you I can't work on this right now - drop it and I'll come back when we can work on it in a constructive manner). I just can't seem to do that stuff very well in things where I really have feelings invested. And it's not even about difficult stuff that I can't do it - it's really about "what the hell is going on with us - if anything?", and being ok with any answer that comes out of that conversation.
I think one of the things that sounds both great and scary as hell about dating and relationships is how to do those things - tell someone how you feel and really get heard, figure out interactions that work and don't work, figure out how to be really authentic and in the moment in a way that lets me be as confident and attractive as possible (not only to him but to myself). It's been so long since I put myself out there and tried to do those things, that I'm not sure how to do it - the skills are either completely rusty, or are gone altogether.
I'm sure I'm also making things harder on myself than necessary by trying to over-analyze every single thing. Sometimes I need to just stop thinking, and start doing. Or maybe I'll just think about things while the opportunities pass me by. Guess we'll have to wait and see how things pan out.
Posted by cshell at April 28, 2004 10:01 PM