Valentine's Day 2022

I guess we’ll call this a “Valentine’s Day Post,” since most holidays have an underlying “real reason for the season” that some of us may overlook. But really, a lot of this has just been surfacing in my personal life lately, between romantic relationships as well as relationships with friends, coworkers, and even family, and I thought I’d share some of the things that I’ve either learned or been chewin’ on recently. Valentine’s Day may typically be thought of as involving romantic relationships, but there’s a lot of crossover in these concepts to almost any type of relationship I can think of. Read on if you want to know my opinion on how to have a successful relationship.

When I was 14, I had the opportunity to enroll for just a short time at a middle school in my birth state of Pennsylvania. There was a book, Key is for Keystone, that explained a lot of the state’s history and cultural/economic/social impacts, but the title illustration is what stuck with me the longest. I looked at the “keystone,” and understood that the stones surrounding that center piece were using their own weight to wedge themselves against the keystone, and how imperative that one piece was to supporting everything else to its left and to its right, as well as any amount of weight on top of it all. It almost looked like the more weight that was on top of this setup, the more the pieces would wedge together and possibly get even stronger as a result.

Somewhere around that same time, somehow, I discovered that *communication* is that keystone in relationships. Even with your “enemies,” the way you communicate can be a huge part of which direction the relationship goes. And there’s so much that goes into that. A public speaking class in college taught me that word selection only accounts for 7% of communication, leaving the rest to body language, tone, speed, volume, etc. We already know how name calling is hurtful and not productive. Score keeping also shifts blame and doesn’t take responsibility for a person’s actions, which is especially hurtful because it dismisses the other person’s concerns. The important thing here…is to approach situations from a position of curiosity. A desire to understand. But be tactful. A simple “why” can come off as a little pointed or challenging and can put the other person on the defense. People can appreciate a certain level of interest in them and their lives, but only to the extent that it’s a vehicle for validation of their thoughts, actions, beliefs, etc. That’s where two other words come into play in this tripod nugget I picked up from a girl in New Zealand a few years ago. She said, in her opinion, that for a relationship to succeed, trust, respect and understanding need to be present. It makes sense to me. When your person - lover, friend, coworker, boss, whoever - tells you something about you, your actions, their opinion on the weather, themselves, anything, it is important to communicate in a way that suggests you respect that perspective, and if you don’t fully agree or understand, you communicate in a way that asks for more without challenging what’s already been said. This may boil down to what sounds like something some of us have heard before: listening.

Even that word, in the English language, has its limitations. When my mom told a younger me to clean my room, and I didn’t “listen,” I more specifically didn’t “obey” her. I’m sure that could elicit some negative emotions in her. Or, when my dad went to the grocery store and forgot to get the store brand or name brand of something she’s told him makes the difference several times prior, she may feel like he’s not “paying attention.” My grandmother told me a story once about how she dropped hints at her now ex-husband about a nice, but affordable, piece of jewelry. She didn’t want to straight up ask him to buy it for her, but would have felt heard if he had put the pieces together and connected the dots for her. That one’s tricky - I’ll save unpacking it for another day. But I think the main type of “listening” that’s important for most relationships, is…almost a combination of all that, the words and surrounding paralanguage that come in response to someone’s opinion. We don’t necessarily need to remember all of it, or read between the lines all the time, but we should respect it. This is the context where you may have heard “no response is the best response.” To just exist, acknowledge, validate…to not challenge, or argue, or dismiss. When you understand, or at least seek to understand, and you do this in a respectful way because you actually respect the other person, you create trust. That doesn’t always refer to absence of lying; in this case, it refers to safe spaces to feel heard. Subsequent to good “listening.” 

Another thing to consider as far as communication goes is the idea of love languages. If you’re familiar with this, you’ve probably discussed it almost exclusively in the context of romantic relationships. I mean, they are called “love” languages. But a lot of this can still apply in other dynamics. If my primary receptive language is words of affirmation, then a gift from my boss might not feel as rewarding to me as simply telling me good job for something notable I did. Of course, there will be limitations here - if my primary receptive language is quality time, it may be hard to tie that to a sense of appreciation of a work task. It’s super convenient when the language you find easiest to speak naturally coincides with the language your partner best receives, but I think it’s also possible to gain awareness of this concept as it relates to you and your person, and improve your ability to speak that language.

This is a big concept, I think, but it’s not the end all be all. There’s actually a sixth love language, and that is safety. I think I was just out of high school when I read an article published in the New York Times that essentially equated love to vulnerability. Think about it - when have you felt most vulnerable? Physically, emotionally, financially. The people that you’re willing to share those situations with are most likely people you love, people you hold close in one way or another. I’ve seen memes about people getting frustrated with dating apps, for several reasons, one being that people aren’t transparent in what they want. We can attribute much of this to a sense of safety and security. One person isn’t going to throw it all out there until they feel safe saying it, until they trust that the other person will receive it, and the other person, in a lot of cases, isn’t likely to agree to whatever the first person wants if they don’t feel safe with them. Sometimes people who cuss or make inappropriate jokes in certain environments, or people who don’t control their anger, anxiety, or other emotions, can make us feel unsafe in one way or another and our communication – our connection with them – will likely decrease with each offense. Arguably more important than the appropriateness of the joke…is the audience’s perception of its appropriateness.

Take my driving style for example. I’ve been driving for over 15 years, in cars with front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, automatic and manual transmissions, ranging from under a ton to over 13 tons, and in all sorts of weather and road conditions. I have never, not once, been in an at-fault accident with another driver. I credit this to my hyper awareness of other drivers on the roads - their current position, speed, acceleration, etc. My style is anticipatory - I react almost before the trigger because I expect the person to…brake after the person in front of them brakes, or pull out in front of me because of the way the road curves and blocks visibility from their perspective. I consider myself a safe driver, but when I accelerate faster than others, or change lanes quickly/abruptly, refuse to use my turn signal, etc, it leaves so many of my passengers feeling like I’m “not a good driver.” Not a “safe” driver. Regardless of how safe I actually am, if I want them to ride with me, I have to drive in a way that lets them feel safe. If I want to connect with someone, I have to consider my audience and how my words, actions, etc will be perceived by them.

Another huge concept: if they communicate to you that they don’t feel safe or otherwise share an opinion about your actions, do 👏🏼 not 👏🏼 invalidate 👏🏼 that. You can communicate too and maybe your perspective could help the other person understand your innocuous intent, but if you don’t work to find a middle ground or if you suggest they’re outright wrong by dismissing their concerns and continuing with your actions as if you didn’t hear them, then they’re not only going to feel invalidated, unheard, unsafe, but they’re also going to be that much more hesitant to communicate concerns going forward. We’ve acknowledged how important communication is, and one of my top values in a person is someone who’s willing to communicate when things don’t go as expected. But if safety to do so hasn’t been set as a preliminary foundation, then the blame can’t really be put on the person who’s not communicating, right? This is especially important to remember as it relates to gender roles – I think in a vastly patriarchal America, men tend to get their way more often than not, don’t always respond maturely or considerately when they don’t, and women are often invalidated. I don’t know how many female friends have shown me text threads of a guy calling her names or some other insulting - and often untrue - remark in response to her declining an invitation to dinner. It often doesn’t matter if she was respectful in her decline or not, and the reason she declined, in a lot of cases, is because she didn’t feel safe. Maybe not necessarily a fear of physical injury, but more likely that the guy wouldn’t respect her decision and would verbally or emotionally abuse her, if he didn’t get his way. And what do you know? She was right. Why would she put herself in a vulnerable position with someone who’d previously suggested (again, the audience’s perception is everything, regardless of how it was intended) that her emotions, concerns, opinions, whatever it was, weren’t safe or respected with this guy? Circling back from this evolving hypothetical based on true events, safety really does come first. People can behave in less-than-great ways, or make mistakes, but if a conversation can’t be had about it, then everything else ends there. Resentment will build, negative emotions will linger, and trust will be eroded until there’s just nothing left. But if safe spaces are created, if both parties feel comfortable confiding in the other after respect and understanding have created trust, then there’s a much stronger possibility of genuine connection and prosperity. And of course, if someone does muster the courage to confide in you with something, big or small, always thank them for doing so. Acknowledge their bravery if it’s something difficult to say. This will further perpetuate that trust and connection. 

As a subcomponent of safety, we might consider something Dr. Alexandra Solomon taught me. She posts lots of helpful, insightful things and I would definitely recommend giving her a follow. In this particular post, she talked about concern vs empathy. You can love a person and be concerned for their well-being. Depending on the dynamic, there can definitely be a time, place, and tact for constructive criticism, but empathy and heart listening should always come first when an experience or emotion is shared. Consider this example: 8-year-old boy skins his knee at the pool and asks the lifeguard for help. If the lifeguard approaches first by attacking, blaming or criticizing (some ABC’s to avoid) the kid for running on the deck, the kid will likely now feel not only physically hurt but also emotionally hurt and be less likely to ask this guard for help in the future. The guard could start by approaching from a position of curiosity and learn that the kid wasn’t running, but instead was pushed. If they become angry with the person who pushed them, and focus first on that with questions like who it was that pushed them, etc, the kid may still feel hurt and that their injury was dismissed. The first order of business is addressing the injury. The guard may not be able to stop it from hurting, but can and should at least see the injury for what it is and either clean it and bandage it, or recommend assistance beyond their level of training. Only after that can this pair have a conversation about preventing recurrence of the injury. Questions like “how did this happen” may be helpful in finding ways to do that, but be present. Shame, blame, regret, or any words that impose these feelings are typically more hurtful than helpful. What happened has happened, regardless of whose fault it was, and nobody can change that. Depending on the relationship roles, we have varying levels of responsibility to console, comfort, support, etc. – in the case of the lifeguard, that dynamic placed an expectation on the guard to help maximize safety. That may not always be possible or expected or appropriate in all relationships – sometimes even an attempt to console may not be what the other person is wanting and can end up being more hurtful than helpful. But, when someone approaches you with a hurtful experience, it is always a good idea to listen and be present. If you don’t know how the person wants you to respond, ask them.

Even that can be difficult to recognize sometimes, being able to take a step back and acknowledge that you might not have the best answer or response. Lots of things can influence this: lack of history with that person, lack of life experience, distracting emotions or situational triggers, and so on. An example of the latter: customer comes in to the restaurant you work at and is furious about having to wait so long for their order. They explain their situation to you in a way that might cause you to also feel angry, or attacked and threatened, etc. This could be a trigger that sets off an emotional response in your brain that doesn’t necessarily match the threat. When these emotions overwhelm you, your brain resorts to its more primal fight or flight centers, and the ability to reason is decreased. Remembering these concepts becomes infinitely more difficult. And this example of an angry person who may come off as a direct threat may be fairly common and easy to understand, but there are countless other scenarios that might involve much more complex emotions and can be even more tricky to navigate. Having an awareness of those emotions, while contextually intimidating, is very important. Being able to look inward at the emotions you’re feeling and how they affect your words and actions is a skill, and likely one that has no limit on potential for growth. A similar skill is the ability to consider your partner’s emotions, whether they’re able to communicate them at the time or not. Obviously more difficult if they don’t; we can remember the importance of safety in doing this, but also consider their own awareness. Maybe they want to communicate, but don’t know how or don’t know what it is they want to communicate. This is where that approach from a position of mutual understanding and curiosity comes into play. What are the actions, what are the driving emotions, what are the unmet needs? The willingness and ability to have this conversation, and then do it again if it turns out your original conclusions were off, can definitely be challenging but is incredibly powerful and crucial to the development of a healthy relationship. We can’t expect ourselves to know or figure everything out in a day, and sometimes giving yourself or your partner some time to process can go a long way.

I’ve listed a lot of do’s and don’ts. If you make a mistake, that’s okay. The last thing I want to consider is the power of an apology. There’s a ton of information out there about how a genuine apology can help validate the recipient’s perspective, and taking ownership of hurtful actions can humble a person in the bigger picture of the relationship. It shows that we care and can help the recipient feel more confident that the hurtful words or actions won’t happen again. This is all assuming the apology is genuine, though. The apology cannot be rushed or simply in response to the injured person asking for it. The apology has to be selfless and truly recognize the impact of the hurtful exchange. And then, it has to be evident in the apologizer’s actions that significant efforts are being made to follow through and not hurt the person again. If a person hurts you and you’re both willing and able to accurately communicate the problem, and they apologize, and all the things I’ve listed happen, but they continue to do the very thing you’ve acknowledged as being the problem without adequate efforts to improve, then that would be a red flag in my mind and I wouldn’t blame you for cutting ties.

I confided in someone just a few months ago, a friend that had previously leaned on me and my listening skills for much of our relationship, and her response to my situation and feelings was so hurtful that I told her I no longer felt safe expressing that sort of thing with her. I tried to help her understand how and why her response contributed to my feelings, and she just wasn’t in the headspace to receive it. I tried to understand reasons for that – maybe there’s an outside stressor or some other emotion she’s feeling that’s preventing her from seeing my perspective. I even questioned to what extent my perspective was valid – maybe I was the one who was wrong. Regardless, I was hurting and I had to put the relationship down lest I continue to be hurt by her actions and unawareness of them. When and if she is able to recognize the impact of her statements and apologize, I think I could very quickly forgive her and let her back into my life. But that’s just me, and that’s a function of the duration and intensity of the pain she caused me. In other words, your apology may be powerful in its intent, but if the severity of the hurtful exchange was too high or too recent, the recipient may still not be ready to forgive or see you in your growth. If you’re the recipient, I want to assure you that that’s okay to take time and ultimately, it’s your choice as to what extent you wish to continue interacting with the offender.

Flipping the script, the last person I apologized to still has not replied to me, weeks later. She may not ever, and I can’t expect her to. And yes, it was in a text. I would’ve preferred to look her in the eyes and offer a genuine apology in person, and if you’re in a position where you feel an apology is warranted, that would be my recommendation. In this case, though, I imagine the recipient probably expected an in-person interaction with me to include unchanged behaviors that may have involved blaming, deflecting, or some other failure to take responsibility that contributes to an absence of safety. When the friend who hurt me invited me to a group dinner, I declined for the same reason. What would be different? At that point in time, I had no indication that she’d acknowledged her role or had any plans to do anything different – I expected her to continue hurting me. I imagine the recipient of my apology may still be in a similar boat, despite my apology incorporating a lot of what I later researched is necessary to make it impactful. Assuming she read my apology, the impact of my actions may be too severe or too recent for her to allow me in her life right now. As much as I feel confident in my ability to recognize what triggered the emotions that fueled my actions and grow from that realization, and as much as I’d love to be a part of her life, I have to understand that she may still be hurting, and that is the priority right now. Maybe she needs more time to process before allowing me to demonstrate my awareness and growth; maybe she chooses not to afford me that opportunity. Maybe I totally missed the mark in what I was taking responsibility for and my attempt to validate just further invalidated her perspective. There’s no way for me to know unless an open-minded, bidirectional conversation is had with understanding at its epicenter. In any case, if you make a mistake in any of your relationships, or your partner trusts you enough to confide in you with concerns about your actions, my suggestion is to own up to it and apologize. If you need to step back and think for a bit first, that’s fine. If you determine that your actions were innocent in intent or otherwise feel that an apology is not warranted, I still urge you to consider the perspective of your partner and weigh the outcomes of apologizing vs not. Communicate if you’re willing and able, and use respect when seeking to understand in order to build trust.

The things I’ve mentioned here, while lengthy, are far from an exhaustive list. (If you have thoughts on any of it or feel I missed something important, DM my Instagram!) For some of these concepts, I’ve only scratched the surface. We may know the big concepts like “be a good listener,” “respect their opinion,” etc but sometimes applying that can be a lot more easily said than done. Sometimes what that really means can amount to a lot more than what meets the eye. It may sound discouraging to consider how difficult it may be to find someone who does all these things, or do them yourself, but that’s not the point. The thing to focus on is the efforts made toward practicing these principles, appreciating yourself and others when they’re executed well, and also giving each party grace when you or they fall short of perfection. We’re all human. It’s a lot to think about and no two situations are ever identical. But as long as you’re growing, you’re doing as much as anyone can ask for.