Clear as Mud

You may think that I don't know a butt-load about communication, but I do.

Nelly and I attended a "communications seminar" last week to help keep our marriage in check. It was hosted at our local church and was a smaller class - so that we could keep things intimate. Easy readers! It's not that kind of church!

We were looking forward to this for a few weeks. Nelly always enjoys hearing how much I suck as a husband and always finds new ways to point out flaws. Seminars are grand. I enjoy the free food. I enjoy it so much that we arrived early for the spread. Little did I know that it would be fruit and yogurt. I was OK with my whipped strawberry-banana, low-fat, junior size cup. Nelly was not. She was expecting breakfast pastries. So we got off to a fantastic start with our host, Julius. As my wife notices the lack of morning-baked-goodness, she eyeballs poor young Julius. She decided that it was in her best interest to gracefully communicate her displeasure to our gracious host, "Hey. Where are the donuts? I'm tellin' you straight up, man, if don't get me one...oooooh! Man you're gonna put on a little Evil Knievel suit and sell some dimes and nicks on a Big Wheel. You're gonna get my donut some kinda way!"

Now that everyone knows who we are, we decide to take our seats up front. He had already taken a "Communications Inventory" a few days prior. Some of you may be familiar with Myers-Briggs or the MBTI assessment. The seminar was going to use this as a basis of our communication styles and relate it our marriage and other important relationships. Here are my actual, unaltered results:

 The Extroversion is PEGGED! If you didn't know me, you'd think that I am an Attention Whore! Being "extroverts" was the ONLY thing that Nelly and I had in common. She was, of course, an extrovert to a much lesser degree than me.

For every pairing of letters we had little exercises to complete. I think this was supposed to give us an idea of how the other spouse views the world. What actually happened was that this gave Nelly ammunition to fire at me throughout the day.

We were on the same side of the fence for the E's vs I's....so we just had fun making fun of everyone not in the "cool" group. It didn't last long as we were separated for the the S vs N topic. At this point, an abstract painting is shown to us. I am in a very small group of "N's" and clearly I talk too much so I offered up what I saw. Since I cannot find that pic, I will show you something very similar:

Here is what I see when I look at this painting: I see 2 shaolin monks running up the stairs carved into Wudon Mountain. The sun is setting and they are heading towards a temple that is in the upper left corner. In the middle there is a flying dragon and in the bottom left is death. It seems that they are running to their master for help with some evil or dark thing that is coming to the land. The other mountains in the back are already in the shadows, so they must hurry!

Most people will only see the bright orange seahorse at the bottom....

I gave a similar answer when asked in the class of what I had seen. As the debate goes back and forth, Nelly very calmly raises her hand. This was very conniving on her part. The facilitator makes sure everyone is quiet before Nelly speaks. She says, "All I see is a man too old to be playing kung-fu making up a story about messy painting."

We then move on to the T's vs F's. We are again put into our proper groups. A simple question was posed to both groups: You are heading to a party with a good friend; when the friend shows up at your house he/she is dressed ridiculously - do you tell them?  To me this was a no-brainer. F yes you say something - Are you serious!?! You are NOT wearing that! You need to change...NOW.  Satisfied with my answer, I turn to the person sitting next to me. I confidently say, "Nelly and I always ask that before we leave. She wouldn't let me leave the house looking like a fool..."  I wish I hadn't said that. No sooner do I finish my sentence when Nelly's hand shoots back up. Again the room is hushed. Nelly then looks right at me and says, "I can't say that to Ray. He's too sensitive."

So then....here are things that I learned at our seminar:

1. Nelly is the devil
2. With Nelly, always assume Prison Rules
3. Always bring donuts so Nelly's not in a bad mood

Communication is key people! We are all different and we should take strides to celebrate that fact. Learn balance with your spouse - don't cause friction.

The class was awesome. Many thanks to Byron Ricks for the session and thanks to The Grind for hosting.