My friend's birthday was coming up. She was going to make plans for a few couples to go out to dinner at the Melting Pot to celebrate. She was talking and said that we would love you guys to come. She was talking about "we" as in her and her husband, even though her husband had no idea about these plans until she was talking to me about them. She asked if "we" as in Adam and I would be interested in going. I took it upon myself without asking him, to say that we would love to go. He was with us that night but was not paying attention to the conversation. When I reminded him of it a few days later, he said that he knew nothing about it. Since I never checked with him, I think this would be an example of where a "we" statement should not have been used, unless I consulted with him first and made sure he was able to come with.
I was lucky in this case that he could go so that I didn't have to break the plans that I made for the two of us. Next time, I will make sure that if I do make a "we" statement that I make sure that WE both agree!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Relative Language/Relative Words
Relative words gain meaning by comparison. When I think of the sayings such as "i'll call you back in a sec." or "ill be over soon", I think of that as being within the hour. Everyone has their idea of what a little bit or soon might be. The only way of knowing what a person means is comparing what your interpretation is compared to theirs. I am constantly having a problem with a friend of mine saying that she will call me back soon. We were talking one day about what we were going to do. The best time for me to do something was earlier than later, but she did not know that. She had to go because her mom needed her so she said she would call me back soon. I did a few things around the house, completing everything I had to do, but she still did not call me back yet. After two hours past I finally decided to call her. She said that she had gotten done with what her mom wanted her to do a while ago but was waiting to call me back because she did not say i'll call you back in a few minutes, she said i'll call you back soon. She did not want to rush me. Her interpretation of soon was three or four hours later. Even though this may not seem like such a problem, I could only hang out for a short time by the time we got together because I had things planned later. So, we now know how we compare a little bit in time and can take that into consideration when we are talking.
Consider When and Where to Express Your Feelings
I believe in the statement "there is a time and a place for everything". An issue that I can think of where I had to wait for the right moment, was discussing with my boyfriend how much it bothered me that he wasn't looking for a job. I knew that just coming out and telling him would not work because it would just be brushed off. This was something I thought out carefully. I had to think of both my feelings and his. I imagined this conversation in advance. I thought about what I would say, what he would say, and then what I would say back.
When it came down to actually talking to him I had feelings of nervousness, but after I was happy. I had to choose a time that was right for the both of us. Bringing it up in front of his friends wouldn't have been polite of me. I wanted this to be a real conversation so I didn't just want to add it onto a fight we were having.
I chose a time when it was just the two of us. We were having a good night and I said that I wanted to talk about something, but didn't want to ruin the night. I picked a time where we weren't going anywhere so we had plenty of time to talk. I talked about how I felt about work ethics and why I would want to look for a job. At first he expressed feelings that were some of anger, but then he understood where I was coming from.
I think that choosing the right place and time to have this conversation made a huge difference!
When it came down to actually talking to him I had feelings of nervousness, but after I was happy. I had to choose a time that was right for the both of us. Bringing it up in front of his friends wouldn't have been polite of me. I wanted this to be a real conversation so I didn't just want to add it onto a fight we were having.
I chose a time when it was just the two of us. We were having a good night and I said that I wanted to talk about something, but didn't want to ruin the night. I picked a time where we weren't going anywhere so we had plenty of time to talk. I talked about how I felt about work ethics and why I would want to look for a job. At first he expressed feelings that were some of anger, but then he understood where I was coming from.
I think that choosing the right place and time to have this conversation made a huge difference!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Fear of Self-Disclosure
I am much like society in feeling that we should not express our emotions and that revealing them can seem very risky. This may sound stupid, but often times I feel that if I talk to a man, that he will always constrew it as being "hit on" rather than just wanting a friend to talk to or having something in common with them. I think part of this is societies fault. I went out with my boyfriend and one of his friends after one of my softball games. We went to a restuarant. We played bingo there and were all having a good time. My boyfriend went to the bathroom, while he was gone his friend and I were talking. When he got back we were still talking. At first I wasnt saying much to his friend, because I didnt want to express my feelings towards anything beause I didnt want to hurt any feelings he may have about the subject we were talking about. I took the risk of talking to his friend. My boyfriend did not like that I was talking to his friend so much and took it as me liking his friend. I got up the courage to tell my boyfriend how much I liked him, disclosing information I didnt tell anyone else. Here I think there was both a fear of being rejected from my boyfriend after telling him that and a fear that my boyfriend would think I was only disclosing this information because I felt bad. I think for him it took a lot of self disclosure to tell me he was a little jealous of how much I was talking to his friend and how much he cared about me.
Gender and the Influenceon Emotional Expression
Since as long as people can remember, men and women have shown or hidden their expressions of emotion differently. I think that men and women have different ways of expression emotions because of gender roles and their biological sex. According to the book, women are more attuned to their emotions than men. I can think of an example where this fits my life. I was having a conversation with my boyfriend about finding another job since he was laid off from his old one months ago. I was telling him that I felt that he was just being lazy and if he really wanted to go get a job he would at least put a little effort into it.
When he started talking he would say a few words like, youre just jealous that you have to go to work and school. Why can't you just let me do what I want. When we got down to the bottom of it, I found out that his feelings were much different than the ones he shared earlier. Before he was not attuned to his emotions, but after a while he came to a better understanding of himself.
He realized that it wasnt that he didnt want to have a job so he could support himself better, but that he was afraid he wouldnt get as good of paying job as he had before. As we kept talking more and more feelings began to come out. We have had a few other conversations on the same subject but he would always say lets just drop it. He never wanted to express his feelings of anger towards being laid off in the first place and the anger he felt because I had a job and was supporting myself. He began to dig out the real roots of his feelings and became much more attuned. I feel that a women would have come to the conclusion earlier and would have expressed this feelings much sooner than my boyfriend did.
When he started talking he would say a few words like, youre just jealous that you have to go to work and school. Why can't you just let me do what I want. When we got down to the bottom of it, I found out that his feelings were much different than the ones he shared earlier. Before he was not attuned to his emotions, but after a while he came to a better understanding of himself.
He realized that it wasnt that he didnt want to have a job so he could support himself better, but that he was afraid he wouldnt get as good of paying job as he had before. As we kept talking more and more feelings began to come out. We have had a few other conversations on the same subject but he would always say lets just drop it. He never wanted to express his feelings of anger towards being laid off in the first place and the anger he felt because I had a job and was supporting myself. He began to dig out the real roots of his feelings and became much more attuned. I feel that a women would have come to the conclusion earlier and would have expressed this feelings much sooner than my boyfriend did.
The Pillow Method
I was never a person that did well at empathizing. An example of when I used the pillow method was when my friend and I got talking on political issues. Position one of the pillow method was "I'm Right, You're Wrong", which is the usual stage I stay in no matter what. I found faults in his side of making abortions legal. So, as we were talking, I tried to flip the stage, moving to position two which was "You're Right, I'm Wrong". I thought about everything my friend was saying and why they might think that. I did pull out a couple flaws in my arguement as well. Position three was easier to come to than position two. Position three is seeing that we are Both Right, Both Wrong. We almost had a debate, but more made of list of all the strengths and weaknesses of our arguements. During this time, we saw that there were a few perspectives we saw eye to eye on. Position four is The Issue Isn't as Important as It Seems. As we continued to talk about his we realized that this was not a situation that we should be seen as extremely important. Although it is one of today's top controversial subjects, we saw that maybe neither side was 100% correct, but by working together a better perspective could be taken into consideration.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Gender Roles
I think that gender roles are still being learned from watching men and women such as your parents, the media, and other reinforcements. Even though gender roles are still a big piece of societal norms, I think that gender roles are being broken more and more these days.
An example that I can think of in my life is when I play sports. I play in a co-ed softball league. People are all different ages from 18 to 60. I think that people use non-verbal cues, such as dress, height, weight, etc. to adjust where and how they stand on the infield and in the outfield. I am not a big person, I am only about 5 feet 2 inches and being a girl, people always move in. I think that women have had the gender role of watching men play sports, cooking and cleaning. When I got up to bat everyone moved in, that was playing in the outfield. They never expected that I would hit the ball farther then where they were standing before they moved in.
I think that I am androgynous, because I combined what were masculine traits with feminine traits. I think that this goes both ways in that in that women can take on some "masculine" traits and men can take on some "feminine" traits.
An example that I can think of in my life is when I play sports. I play in a co-ed softball league. People are all different ages from 18 to 60. I think that people use non-verbal cues, such as dress, height, weight, etc. to adjust where and how they stand on the infield and in the outfield. I am not a big person, I am only about 5 feet 2 inches and being a girl, people always move in. I think that women have had the gender role of watching men play sports, cooking and cleaning. When I got up to bat everyone moved in, that was playing in the outfield. They never expected that I would hit the ball farther then where they were standing before they moved in.
I think that I am androgynous, because I combined what were masculine traits with feminine traits. I think that this goes both ways in that in that women can take on some "masculine" traits and men can take on some "feminine" traits.
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