Silent but Deadly

The downfall of almost every man is his inability to communicate clearly how he feels with the women in his life. This has been my experience in so many of the relationships I've had. I continue to wish that we could all feel free to simply express how we truly feel without fear. There is no worse feeling than getting into a relationship up to your eyeballs with someone, only to have them backpedal their way out because they misspoke early on. You know what, It's OKAY to say you don't like me anymore. Let me move on and find someone else! I'd so much rather someone say that to me than to string me along out of fear of speaking the truth.

The pinnacle of this callousness is to have someone profess to LOVE you but then start to worm away from you - not for lack of love, they say - but because of random, nonsensical reasons that don't add up, like being suddenly busy all the time. Oh my GOD! Just SAY IT! Whatever it is. It could be that "I said I loved you but I was really just excited by the sex," or perhaps, "This is much more complicated than I wanted it to be." You get the idea. Making stuff up is no way to end a relationship. I'd so much rather someone be honest with me about how they feel. But that is another downfall of man, that the mere SPEAKING of a feeling OUT LOUD is tantamount to emasculation.

"Oh,no! I said 'I love you.' Now what if she expects something from me?"

OR

"I told her she makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Now I feel stupid."

Part of being in a relationship with someone is sharing your vulnerability with another person. If you can't make yourself vulnerable, there is no relationship. When women sit and cry around a pint of ice cream, we are being vulnerable with each other and it creates a bond that lasts forever. Men could take a lesson from this.

Vulnerability = intimacy.

TRUTH.

Then there is the perception that most women are just one nervous breakdown away from boiling your bunny. I'm sick of men using that as a defense. How does an otherwise competent, intelligent woman suddenly morph into a bunny-boiler? Because of a man who toyed with her emotions, maybe even used the "L" word, made her feel adored and special, and then suddenly started to withdraw to the point that he's almost invisible. WHAT HAPPENED? For the love of all that is holy, own up to your feelings! I'd much rather you tell me that you just aren't feeling it anymore, or that things are moving too fast and you want to slow down, or that you feel overwhelmed. I'm not a mind reader; you have to tell me what's going on inside that head. Let's talk about it! It's like magic, I know. We can actually TALK with one another about our concerns and VOILA! A solution might magically appear!

You see, women know this already, we know that if you'd just spare us your shrinking and worming away and withdrawing and generally acting like a scared little girl, and instead used your BIG BOY WORDS - even when it's to convey something unpleasant - that, ultimately things turn out better in the end. Honesty can hurt sometimes, but generally speaking (and exempting true psychos) no one is going to boil a bunny when they feel they've been treated with honesty and respect. But when you try to worm out of the difficult conversations, then bunnies may sometimes be boiled.

The thing is, women are very good at reading non-verbal communication, or reading between the lines of your "heartfelt" text message or email where you supposedly expressed your deepest emotions. We can tell when something just doesn't add up. That's when we start to get paranoid and pissed off. We know something isn't right; your body language tells us something isn’t right. And nothing is sitting right with us.

This is when we throw our hands up in frustration and say, “JUST SPIT IT OUT!"

Stop being afraid to say how you feel. Don't insult our intelligence or placate us with sweet talk. If you're done with the relationship, just say so! Trying to dress dog shit with frosting and sprinkles doesn't mean it's not dog shit; it just means something is really wrong with you that you'd even do that!

And EW you touched DOG SHIT!

I'm exhausted with trying to get men to communicate and I'm tired of the bullshit "men are from mars" blah blah blah. Enough with the euphemisms; grow a pair of cajones and SAY HOW YOU FEEL! It's not rocket science. Even a preschooler knows how he feels, it's just as he's socialized that he learns to beat that impulse out of himself until he's left simply drooling on himself out of utter confusion as to what to do and how to talk to a woman.

It's not the things you say, it's the things you DON'T that cause us the most pain usually. It's your reluctance to share that hurts so much. In the end, it's your silence that ends up being the death knell to what was once a promising relationship.