Listen to the Action, Jane, Not the Words!

LISTEN TO THE ACTION, JANE, NOT THE WORDS

 

I’ve got this female pal.  Call her Jane.  She’s involved with a guy.  Call him Tarzan.

 

Trouble with this couple has been going on for over four years.  So many relationship problems should be solved by demolition alone, but this relationship issue is different because only a small adjustment is required, but failing that adjustment, these two are torturing each other and making each other miserable.

 

So why don’t I just advise them both to break up and move on?

 

Because unlike most relationships, these two people (a) adore each other, (b) are good for each other, (c) pine for each other when they are apart, (d) are unable to form relationships with anyone else because they are so “stuck” on each other, and finally and perhaps most important, (e) they have nuclear explosion chemistry for each other.

 

So what’s the trouble?

 

They keep talking past each other. 

 

He says, in a calm, deep, friendly tone of voice:

 

I don’t love you.

 

I don’t want a committed relationship.

 

I don’t need a girlfriend.

 

Just come over and let’s hang out and have sex.

 

 

She says (in your mind, picture this being said in a bitter, shrill, hysterical chick voice):

 

I want to be LOVED!

 

I want to have a committed RELATIONSHIP!

 

I need a BOYFRIEND!  I need him to need ME!

 

I’m not coming over unless I have it MY way!

 

 

They are both misstating the truth with their words.

 

In reality, if we were to examine the real communication that comes from their actions, this is what we would see:

 

HE COMMUNICATES THROUGH ACTIONS:

 

Jane, I love you, you are the only woman for me.  I watch you while you date other men and I hope no one gets serious with you.  I freak out when you really like some Bozo you’re dating, because when you do that, I call you every day, I drive by your house, and we run into each other by coincidence.  I think about you constantly.  You are my one true love.  You, Jane, are more than that.  You are the love of my life.

 

Jane, I have trouble believing what females say, so I judge them by their actions, and I know you want to be with me because of how you smile when I see you, the lightness in your tone of voice when I talk to you on the phone, and how fast you return my calls if I get your voicemail.  And when I email you, you email me back paragraph after paragraph within minutes.  I don’t read the words because words are just lies, but it matters to me that you spent so much time writing me a letter.

 

Jane, we’re already IN a committed relationship.  No other woman does it for me nor will ever do it for me.  I talk to other women about YOU.  I measure other women by the gold standard that YOU ARE to me.  And since no one measures up, I will always love you and want you and think of you.  But I’m Tarzan, and after the number my first bride did on me, I can’t say words like “committed relationship,” they make me feel like a fool and a pussy.  And I need to feel and be strong in your eyes.  What more commitment can a woman have than that she is indelibly in my mind, she flows in my veins, and no one else will ever inhabit this heart?  No deeper commitment will ever exist between man and woman.

 

Jane, I am and will always be your boyfriend.  Look how I am constantly communicating with you, asking how you and your family and your children are, how I want details about your dating, and how when you are unhappy with a guy you’re seeing, how delighted I am.  And how, when you think you really like a guy, how freaked out I get.  I am always inviting you over to my house, for dinner, for a bottle of wine, to stay over, and if you agree, to have loving and amazing sex with me.  Whenever you have invited me over to see you, I drop what I’m doing, cancel other plans and I am there.

 

Jane, I do need you and I will always need you.  I can’t live my life without you.  Even if I can only have molecules of you here and there, that alone is preferable to nothing.  And if the worst happens and you die before I do, I will put a red rose on your grave every single day until I die.  People will accuse me of crying, but they will be wrong.  There will just be some dirt in my eyes.  Or my allergies will be acting up.  Yeah, that’s it.  Allergies.

 

Jane, I ignore what your spoken and written words try to say because WOMEN LIE and WORDS LIE, as my first wife so abundantly proved.  So I pledge to ignore whatever you say and write and instead I will listen to your tone of voice and I will watch your body language and the patterns of our interaction to see how you feel about me, and since those actions show you love me, I am firmly planted in this relationship, merely waiting for you to let me in.

 

Jane, while I wait for you, I will date around, but no one reaches me, no one touches my heart, and the only thing these women do is keep mesane while I wait for you to agree to let me come closer to you.  I hope it will be soon, but since I will always love you, I will wait decades for you to see how much I adore you.