{"id":210,"date":"2008-10-27T00:00:46","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T04:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/?p=210"},"modified":"2008-10-27T00:00:46","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T04:00:46","slug":"ask-the-misanthrope-changing-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/2008\/10\/27\/ask-the-misanthrope-changing-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask the Misanthrope: Changing Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am coming out of 8 years of self imposed singleness, introspection and evolution. yeah yeah, had the heart broken like us all, but I am alive and happy now and ready to love again. I met an exceptional woman in May, she is poly, very open and honest, we like each other and I am looking forward to becoming her friendintimate. Not only am i new to poly, but new to dating. the last time I dated, the use of email was minimal and texting non existant, now it is de riguer.<\/p>\n

Do you feel modern rapid communication technology has changed parameters of communication, or just the expectations of it?<\/p>\n

Now while I am NOT sitting here freaking out, I am trying to figure out if waiting 9 days for a response to an email I sent to find out when we can see each other again is a passive agressive version of “I’m just not that into you” ( the old me ) versus “She is a very very very busy workaholic extrovert with a partner, girlfriend, career and has just met you, no biggie” ( the new me). Not trying to have you determine her motives, but since the first thing she told me was her desire to communicate in a timely manner, I am stumped as to whther my definition of timely manner is skewed due to access to email and texting……..<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s a very interesting question.<\/p>\n

Confession: I owe an email to someone I’m <\/strong>friends with.\u00a0 In checking the date, it’s been nearly nine days with me, too! I like the person a great deal (he’ll be getting an email before you see this, by the way), and in my case it really has been that I forgot to make a note to myself to answer the email in the throes of a psycho busy time.\u00a0 I really am so busy I have to flag emails and set a date and time to respond to them or they don’t get answered.\u00a0 This is especially true when it deals with the scheduling of time, as I really do have to lay out a schedule to get to stuff and arrange for times to do things1<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

That said, yes, sometimes not answering can<\/strong> be a little passive aggressive.\u00a0 Sometimes, it’s just someone being flaky.\u00a0 I guess the real question is how much flakiness are you willing to put up with before you’re not into that person, ya know?<\/p>\n

I will suggest one way to find out how this chick feels.<\/p>\n

Ask her.\u00a0 Asking a question is a very good way to find out about things, as we all learned on Sesame Street.\u00a0\u00a0 If you’re wondering about something, sure, it can feel real vulnerable to ask a direct question about it.\u00a0 I get that, and I sympathize.\u00a0 I’ve neglected to ask direct questions of people when I’m wondering about things from that same vulnerability.\u00a0 The price I pay is not knowing the answer<\/em>.\u00a0 I suppose when not knowing is more painful than a possible answer one doesn’t want, it becomes easier to ask the question, huh?\u00a0 I’m in favor of asking for lots of reasons.\u00a0 It establishes a great precinct of open communication, it lets your potential know that you’re willing to find things out directly rather than fiddling around and projecting, and it also gives a good opportunity for someone whose email has been dropped by accident.<\/p>\n

Good luck in your new relationships.\u00a0 But remember, if this doesn’t work out, there really are six billion people on this planet.\u00a0 If a cannibal can find someone to volunteer <\/em>to be killed and eaten, surely our problems of finding the appropriate relationships to suit us are considerably more minimal2<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

\n

1<\/sup>Public thanks to my sweet and generous FWB for not getting irritated with schedule flakiness on my part, by the way. \ud83d\ude09
\n2<\/sup>Shamelessly stolen from another dear and treasured friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am coming out of 8 years of self imposed singleness, introspection and evolution. yeah yeah, had the heart broken like us all, but I am alive and happy now and ready to love again. I met an exceptional woman in May, she is poly, very open and honest, we like each other and I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-the-misanthrope"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}