I say what I mean...

...and I mean what I say.

I've always been like that. I don't say things randomly or without due care. I speak the way that I write. I don't play to people's egos or any of that crap. At the same time, it's not "just the facts ma'am". While I do have an engineering background (I like to say that I'm a "recovering engineer"...) and appreciate precision when it comes to communication, I'm not limited to just what is objective and demonstrable. I am capable of communicating things that are very deep and personal with great ease... often times, I just have to sit with it for a bit.

Sally sent me a picture of herself at work to me while I was enroute to my destination today. I took a look at it on my small mobile phone screen and I thought she looked beautiful, so I wrote a text to her and told her that. When I got to my hotel room and actually downloaded it on to my computer, I could see much more of the photo and noticed the blouse/dress she was wearing. It was beautiful too. Everything about it worked. I loved it. So, I sent her another text message and told her that. She responded with a smile and a thank you.

This required no thought or effort on my part. It was what was there to say and was really simple to do. In fact, I really wanted to do it. I wanted her to know that I was thinking of her and that I thought she looked beautiful. In fact, even more than that, I wanted her to know that I was already missing her (less than 12 hours since I'd seen her last). So, what did I do? I picked up the phone and call her. I really just wanted to hear her voice. I didn't care about what we talked about. She could have just told me what was happening at work or whatever was on her mind at the time. Hearing her voice was enough for me.

I didn't just sit around and think about it -- I did something about it! She told me that she appreciated it.

One of the complaints that Sandy has had with me is that I don't tell her things like:

• I think she looks beautiful/pretty
• I like her hair
• I like an outfit that she is wearing
• etc.

And she's right -- generally speaking, I don't do that. Why? Because it's not something that I feel is true for me. When I feel it, I say it. As I said before, I am not going to offer a compliment (or a criticism) to someone, if I don't feel it. I wouldn't say that she's not "pretty". She's certainly not homely, ugly or anything like that. I'd never say that. But when I think of (and see) Sandy, I don't have any association with someone that I would describe as beautiful or pretty.

You may think me a bit callous (or even a real bastard) about this point, but I'm sorry. It's just not true for me! I cannot and will not fake this. If I don't feel it, I don't say it. I'm not going to try to "convince" myself into it either. The other part of this is the advice in the old saying "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". And this is a pretty good restatement of where things are with Sandy. I don't say anything, if I don't have anything good to say. From the outside, this can look like a reticence to be in communication, when it's really not.

During our vacation, we were talking about our transition and I tried to bring this up and explain my perspective/point of view. Given I hadn't restarted blogging at this point and hadn't thought about this specific topic, I don't think we had an effective conversation about this. In retrospect, it may have been a good thing, because I think that the "bottom line" here would really just serve to piss her off and make things that much worse. After all, I'm not an idiot, no one wants to hear that someone doesn't think they are [desired attribute], whatever good term/adjective might fit here.

I know that this conversation is going to get had at some point soon, I'm just not quite sure when. I'm not going to be able to avoid it... and the truth is that I really don't want to avoid it. I want to move things forward. Hey, we'll see how this goes. I expect it'll be a contentious conversation -- and with this comes stress. If nothing else, it'll certainly be interesting.