I seem to have developed this intense panic over being misunderstood. The mere possibility of it sends me burbling into clarifications and palpitations, which only serve to further discourage understanding me at all!
Is being misunderstood really the worst possible thing that could be happening to me?
Generally, thankfully, to-date, my life has not hung in the balance due to an "understanding" of my thoughts, motivations, or intentions. If a friend doesn't understand me when I show him a pumpkin and say "I carved a new pumpkin today" and instead hears "I carved you a pumpkin today" and takes it, will he threaten my life when I try to explain what I actually said and take the pumpkin back? No! If I choose to let him keep the pumpkin without clarifying my original intent, will my husband murder me because I gave a gourd to another man? No! Okay, I get that, and I'm thankful that those are not the kinds of relationships in which I am involved.
But what about the longer term effects of that misunderstanding? Will my friend wonder why I carved him a pumpkin? Will he think I am nicer than I really am? Do I deserve to be thought of as nice if I didn't actually intend to be? Was I nice in the end anyway because I didn't make him give it back? And what of my other friends, will they be jealous that I did not carve pumpkins for them, and wonder if I like them less? If so, should I quick go carve a bunch of pumpkins and distribute them?
Or what if I write a blog post and I don't edit it enough--I don't do a good enough job explaining my thoughts, somebody reads it and thinks I'm a jerk? I mean, I might be a jerk sometimes, but I don't believe my heart is a jerk. My intentions are not jerky. Will my readers give me the benefit of the doubt? Have I given them enough reason to?
And put those two together: what if my friend reads this blog and thinks I'm a jerk because I didn't tell him about the pumpkin thing, didn't try to clarify enough?
I make light of my crippling panic by explaining it in a story about gourds, but the panic is real, as are the incoherent burblings and downward spiral of self-doubt that occur when the stakes are higher than autumnal decor. Being understood, itself, is a basic human desire, right? But why do I fear being misunderstood so much? It happens all the time! Communication is hard! Everyone has been guilty of failing to understand another, and everyone has been misunderstood. Consequences range from things getting overlooked, to relationships getting screwed up, to healthy limbs getting amputated. No amount of worry or panic or words heaped on a subject can prevent misunderstanding from inevitably happening.
Hmm, that seems like reason enough to panic, no? Or at least to practice vigilance against misunderstandings--by explaining the heck out of everything!
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UPDATE:
(because I don't want you to think I'm over being misunderstood just because I figured out it's a problem and blogged about it)
For the record*, I want you all to know that I am very happy that my friend has that pumpkin. After my cold heart became confused and worried about what just happened, I realized that it rather warmed my heart back up again that he liked it so much. He even gave it a mustache for Movember. I will post a picture of it on here soon, provided we are still friends after this latest communication fiasco in the long string of communication fiascoes that seemingly make up all of my relationships, and I don't find its remains smashed on my doorstep.
*I say that phrase a lot--I bet it's because I want to make sure you have a nice concise summary of what I'm thinking ;)
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