Human relationships, indeed, are complicated and contradictory and I think everyone involved in any kind of a meaningful relationship can admit they experienced that.
The thing is, we can never really know what the other people think or feel and why. When we interact with others, all that we get is a subjective interpretation of their thoughts and feelings. A thought or feeling formed in another persons head, that is expressed to you, passes two filters before it reaches you: first, it is somehow expressed by the other person in the way they believe is fit, which can have various degrees of directness, sometimes being extremely vague, and then it is interpreted by you through the lens of your own personal beliefs and life experience. So when the "message" reaches you after passing these two filters, it might be completely unrecognizable, fully lost on it's way and not noticed by you at all, or conversely you might see things that require interpretation while there really aren't any. To make matters worse, where discrepancies between "what I said" and "what you heard" become obvious, not all people accept that they simply misunderstood the other person, especially when the matter is sensitive.
And so we get situations like this:
- Bob and Alice tell each other "I love you" every morning. Bob is conservative and thinks that when you love someone, you do nice things for them, so he works a lot to buy Alice nice things. In turn, he expects Alice to take care of the house and make him nice lunches. Alice think that when you love someone you're affectionate with them. When Bob grows too tired to be affectionate, Alice thinks he now loves her less, and becomes insecure. She decides to get in shape. Now she does less around the house because she is constantly in the gym, and there is nothing in the fridge but apples and kale smoothies, and when Bob notices it, he believes she doesn't care about him needs, so she must love him less. They both grow resentful, suspect infidelity, and boom - conflict.
- Alice believes that when you care about someone, you talk to them about their feelings. Bob doesn't do it, so Alice tells him she wants him to care about her more. Bob believes caring means taking active part in the other person's life, so he begins to interject himself in Alice's activities more and more. Eventually, Alice accuses him of being controlling, Bob tells her he only does what she asked him to do, Alice denies, and boom -conflict.
- Alice hates Carol from accounting. One day when Carol is particularly nasty, Alice comes home and complains to Bob about Carol being an ass, and mentions her showing off her diamond engagement ring. Bob is a bit insecure about his finances, so all he gets from it is "diamond ring". Bob accuses Alice of caring about material things too much, because he feels like Alice is blaming him for not buying her a diamond ring. Alice is already pissed off, so she flies off the handle after hearing a very unexpected accusation. Boom - conflict.
I hope you understand what I was trying to convey. Wow, this is long. Thank you for coming to my TED talk
