Communication Breakdown, an Introduction

When 5a.m. roles around, coffee is important.  It is so important that every other immediate task at the moment of waking can be put on hold.  Literally, “I can hold it… at least until the coffee has been started”.  The only problem with that plan is the 5 am part.  Cheap coffee won’t do, but the good coffee, the favorite coffee that was picked up last week from that local roaster joint, is whole bean. That means the coffee will have to be ground before the pot can but started which delays ‘taking care of business’ that much longer.  “The bathroom will have to wait.  I need coffee.”  Finding the coffee grinder at this time of day is a difficult task, but turning on the faucet to fill the decanter is torture.  Once the grinder is out, the tank is full, and filter is in, the only thing to do is find the beans.  Devastation sets in as the realization that the one thing that could bring sunshine and mental clarity to the 5 am start is gone.  One of the roommates brewed the last pot of the favorite coffee, and put the empty bag back in the cupboard.

Unfortunate issues like this come up often in relationships, and I’ve found that more often than not they’re handled poorly.  What is to be done is this scenario; chuck the empty bag in roommate’s face, pile roommate’s clothes in the yard and set fire to them, brew the last of their coffee?  Oh wait, roommate doesn’t have any.  What they really need is a good dose of verbal violence.  Yelling and murderous threats do wonders for motivating the freeloading sluggard, right?  It would also fell good to eat the last pop tart.  Roommate really loves pop tarts.  Maybe the issue should just be let it go.  It’s a good felling when the high road taken and our lives are laid down for the sake of others.  After all, it’s just coffee, and not bringing it up would really avoid some uncomfortable conflict.  This also makes us a doormat.  Do we have the right to bring it up?  We’ve had something dear be stripped from us.  We fell that we’ve been wronged and desire justice.  However, the coffee pot is roommates and we’ve never given roommate anything for letting us use the coffee pot, and we use it a lot.  Got it! We’ll call his mother and tell her how much of a jerk their child is.  Also, we can talk really bad about roommate to all our friends.  That will really solve the problem.

My question is what ever happen to talking it out?  I think that fist fights happened.  I think a culture that tells us whatever will make number one happy is a justified means happened.  I think entertainment, text speak, and face book happened.  We’ve forgotten how to communicate. Young people ask me often, “What does ‘good communication’ mean” especially when it boils down to relationships.  I want to try to answer that.  The next few post will each review a principle of communication that I’ve found to be useful.

Stay tuned!