Among all the complaints I’ve heard for many years between two people in love, there’s one which sounds like so stupid, that I can hardly think it’s real: why don’t they talk enough? I’m sure you’ve heard it too, especially between long last couples. I’m sure it drives you crazy too: in our world turned on a very huge mass of information, and almost all on such different ways to exchange words, you think these couples may be 1/ not in love anymore or 2/a bit idiot or finally 3/ both.
I’m not thinking about communication, which is a word used by psychoanalysts and psychologists that sounds like a big disease you’ll never heal, but about talking to someone. Just that. You know, the kind of “Hello, how do you feel, today?”, or “Nice weather today, isn’t it?” and more like “I love you more day after day”, “I’m so happy you came in my life”, “You’re my everything”, “I wonder how I did to live without your love”, and so on.
I’m talking about love. About taking care of someone you cherish. I’m talking about two people in love, since half of a century even. About simple words, said for someone who can appreciate them as they are. A naked sentence, I mean with no trick. Not hard to do, actually: a subject + a verb + an object. Who can’t do it?
Why is it so hard to talk to the other one? Where does it come from? A bad habit, no more love, a too busy life? How many people live in the same home and don’t exchange more than a few words a day? But they are connected with the whole world on their phone, on their laptop, with the social networks, their friends, children, their boss, the dyer shop, the Asiatic restaurant down the street, their online bank account, shops, or dating websites… what’s wrong with it?
Do you really think it’s a natural way of living? Being connected all the time long with the whole world, ok, but that remains a virtual socialization: it looks like real, but it’s not, actually. When you’re on trouble, you call your best friend to help you, but not the one living on the other side of the planet, don’t you? How many friends could come over at home, within ten minutes, among all these people you share a “like” or some pics with, on your favorite social network? How many of them do you call to go out on the sat’ evening for a drink or to eat a bite somewhere?
So talking to someone needs to live not so far away from them. It needs to be concerned with what happens in their life, as they are with you. It means getting emotions, feelings, by sharing something more than just a “like”: a coffee, a book, a nice afternoon at the beach, or a walk. Some of us want more than a virtual connection with others, and almost all, to be reconnected with ourselves first.
I’m not saying the web is a danger, nor it’s weird. But it could be just a tool to learn or read more, not to know how the people run their lives, spend their money or where they go for their holidays. We don’t care, actually. We want to share beautiful emotions, nice feelings with those we love, or care about.
When I see how much time is wasted on thousands connections on the web, per a person and per a day, among people around me, I don’t wonder anymore why they say they have no time for themselves, or to do some sport, or to meditate (understand at least staying quiet for a while). I’m not in the judgment neither, but I realize that simply talking to someone else anywhere, anytime, has become a performance. We don’t dare to talk to an unknown person at the shop round the corner, nor to a person you cross on a sidewalk. Talking to someone you don’t know yet is seen as an invasion of our private space, a kind of an outdated way of getting acquainted with someone. But it’s surely not when you start your day by opening your phone cell and check your emails and all the “like” of the connected people in your social networks… Is it normal?
What’s better than talking with your neighbor, your daughter, an old friend, the cashier at the grocery, saying “thank you”, giving a smile, saying “good bye” or just looking at these people as human beings and no more as if they were some objects. The world needs more compassion, kindness, and interest in people who cross your way. It isn’t hard to start: just doing the first step to the other one and talk to them. No matter you’re dressed, you’re old, young, rich or poor: just say “hello” with a smile. It works out, I swear!
Love,
Jane