Book Day 27 - Words and Negotiation
Another one for the Negotiation chapter.
One really funny thing that you may encounter when you are around a person who is seeing someone else some of the time, or is talking about other people, is how funny words get.
There are categories of words that they might use with other people, that they don’t use with you.
Or they use the same words they use with you, with other people.
And then words get kind of funny.
And you get funny feelings about the words.
You can even get into emoticons.
Some person may use :p all the time. With everybody.
Some person may ***NEVER*** use :p. They may only use :3. But then they use :3 with everybody.
Some people never use smiley emojis. Some people add :) to a lot of things. Sometimes they just send a :) .
Some people text entire paragraphs, their entire stream of thought. Some people only text things like directions, or clear communications.
Of course people talk differently.
It can be jarring sometimes when you hear a person you love talk in strange ways with other people. It might be a part of them you don’t know very well, or do know extremely well and know what parts of themselves they are channeling when they are with another person.
You know which parts are hidden, which they show, what they’re transparent about, what will be revealed in time.
It can be a site of jealousy, when a person talks about another person, in ways the do not talk about you, because the occasion for them to talk about you in front of you wouldn’t ever come up.
You get funny situations.
I’ve had a few different times now, when a man was talking about a woman in front of me in a very locker room style, in front of another man. Really talking about how attractive another woman is. I would assume that this means he is not into me, or does not find me as attractive as her.
Later I would learn that he is indeed into me and does find me more attractive.
This has happened enough times that I started realizing that this is something that happens in all kinds of spheres. People can talk in certain ways about other people in front of you, that they wouldn’t be able to replicate with you directly, unless some kind of state is induced such that they can speak to you in that way.
This stuff can cause jealously, beyond natural levels.
It is one of the things that can “ratchet up intensity.”
Something that Alice says casually about how amazing or handsome her partner is, her other partner may inherit as a very specific wound he cannot get out of his head.
And then a remedy is not likely to be delivered unless a specific conversation is initiated in which a remedy could be delivered.
“Yes of course I wanted to fuck her, that’s why I fucked her!”
This could be a very painful sentence to hear for some people — the intensity of it. And by the time this sentence comes up, usually some other mishaps around the word want and around other aspects of negotiation had already happened.
That’s part of the ratcheted up intensity.
Differences in what words mean to each other can lead to people building larger constructions on disagreements or not legible mutually-agreed-on philosophy. And then those large constructions can be relaly hurtful.
A hard thing that was once “possible” becomes a hard thing that is a hard thing neither party has any techniques, tools, or resources to deal with.