Do me a favor and try not to unnecessarily over-analyze passing comments that somebody makes. Or short exchanges. Or a thing someone said but the conversation wandered off before the thing was elaborated on. For one, because I'm already doing that about my own words for you, wondering what you heard and if I misrepresented myself, and secondly, because I tell myself you won't, to quiet the self-criticism looping in my head (as if repeatedly replaying the conversation will be penance enough for expressing those carelessly constructed notions).
I generally start over-analyzing my words shortly after our social interaction, and imagine that you are doing the same: "Why did she say that?" you wonder, or "Did you hear what Rachel said to me?" you ask your spouse. And then you sum it up: "She's weird" or "She's not very nice." I don't allow you to give me the benefit of the doubt by saying "Maybe she didn't mean it that way" or "Maybe she didn't hear me correctly," so I begin thinking through a whole list of things I could have said differently, to be less awkward and more gracious, and to express what I really mean and feel.
In these imaginary followup conversations with you, you're really nice and just let me talk it out. In fact, you don't say a word. You just listen. Unfortunately, if I'm particularly troubled over what I said, I have a tendency to take your silence as confusion, or worse, contempt. My heart races as I explain to you as clearly as possible in as many ways as possible what I'm thinking. My adjectives get stronger as I'm desperate for you to understand. By the time I'm just flat out swearing and my blood pressure is doubled, I realize you are not actually hearing any of this, and furthermore I probably won't ever say any of these things to you in real life.
It is then that I do myself a favor and convince myself you are not the over-analyzing type.
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