Sunday, August 30, 2015

#SundayReflections When Communication Goes Wrong

For most of 2015, I've been by myself. Anytime I've wanted to go out, I've just gone. Almost all my restaurant trips have been a table for one. Social media, television shows, waitresses at restaurants, cashiers at grocery stores, and the homeless people standing on the nearby corners have become the familiar faces I see a lot and the people that recognize me. At the beginning of the year I decided to put the people I already knew and the idea of meeting new people at a distance. This is what I learned. 

Some people just don't get that they have to pick up the phone and communicate too. There are a few people that I talk on the phone with (or text) regularly. One lives on the other side of Houston while the rest live in other states. I used to communicate with more than a few, but my energy was being drained from all the effort. They weren't returning phone calls when they didn't answer or they were always making excuses for their own lack of communication. I took it as them saying I didn't matter at all to them.

As many of you know I went to Florida A&M University. During my time there, I met tons of people. Some of those people know lots of people and that has opened the gateway for me to sometimes meet people that I otherwise never would have come in contact with. There is this girl out here in Houston that happens to be one of those people.

One of my college friends went to middle school with her. Somehow they got back in touch after she graduated college. She didn't go to college in Tallahassee. He gave me her number last year after she moved out here and told me to get in contact with her. The only people she was hanging out with at the time were her (then) new coworkers. We met, but then my schedule got crazy. When my schedule gets crazy, I usually stop trying to keep up with everyone else. Plus I was pretty sure she'd have no problem with getting acquainted with this big city and meeting lots of people. However, because my friend knows I haven't been hanging with anyone lately, he suggested I get back in touch with her. I did. 

I called her to suggest going to this event coming up in a couple weeks. However, in the conversation she had to say what others love to say. It was that she doesn't really call anyone and has a bad habit of not keeping in contact with people. Her saying it was just something casual that she felt she should mention because we hadn't talked in a while.

People around my age love to throw out how bad they are with communicating. They love to put on social media for others not to call them and not to call them while they are texting that person. They love to put the worst moments of their friendships and relationships on blast for the public to see. They give this perception that they are better off alone even though none of us are. Then they turn around and complain when no one is communicating with them. 

I will also admit this. I'm becoming like everyone else. Outside of the couple of people I make an effort to communicate with, my skills are getting horrible. I just hope the friends of the past remember the times I did make the phone calls, ask them how they were doing, make plans to hang out and actually follow through. 




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Lashuntrice

Lashuntrice