Problems with Communication or "Talking to Girls"

Hello friends. I make my triumphant return to blogging today from sunny Spain (I wasn't on the plain so it didn't really rain, which was almost inhumane, all that heat fried my brain, don't know why I've been sprayin' all these rhyming complaints, it's just dull, quite inane but right now, its insane, I can't stop this refrain, someone please halt this train of my thoughts, I'm derailed. Have I broken the chain? That there rhyme was not great, left a stain on the grain of reputation I'd obtained with this rambling, mundane poetic drain on your time and your patience.) Phew. Sorry, got a little carried away there. Anyway, in my return to the English language I think it appropriate that I talk a little bit about communication.

We are constantly communicating. We communicate with our expressions, our body language, our words. We communicate emotions, needs, thoughts and have done since the very moment of our birth. One of our first statements (however incoherent) is generally "I'm cold and wet and confused and I want food and/or something familiar, NOW". Said in a single, high pitched yell. No language is used to get across this first message yet it is universally understood.

And that brings me to the primary focus of this bog entry: Understanding. Communication is all well and good but if you can't be understood then there really isn't much point. And this has been a problem for me personally in the past. Now, any of you who read this blog (or are currently reading this blog, which I must assume is true, unless you've somehow found a way around that by bending the fabric of space-time) know that I have no problem expressing myself through the medium of the written word at least half cohesively. It could even be said I do so too much, rambling and addressing things that really no one has any interest in except perhaps myself. However, and I'm by no means suggesting that this is an isolated thing, I occasionally have trouble communicating in person. Not in general, mind you. No, I tend to have trouble talking to a certain type of person. To make myself seem less awful by phrasing this badly, allow me to paint a picture of me so that you can imagine the type of person I have trouble communicating with. Like a game. A really, really easy game.

I don't really care much about physical appearance. I don't wear make-up. Like, at all. I do not enjoy shopping. As a "hobby" it baffles me. I don't keep up religiously with fashion trends (I don't really follow anything religiously for that matter but that's beside the point) or celebrities or reality TV. As a kid, I had mostly male friends. But my Catholic primary school only had boys in it for the first three years, then they left. And eight year old me was left wondering "Shit, what do girls do?" I don't think I ever properly developed that set of social skills. (Yeah, I'm going all "tell me about your childhood" here. I've psychoanalysed myself waaay too much. I have this image of me one day showing up for therapy and basically writing a report for my shrink. Like, "Step back, I got this.")

Basically, I think I missed the workshop where you learn how to socialize with females and bond over cosmetics and clothes and such. I was probably climbing a tree somewhere. I think I also missed the brainwashing session where they make you care about this shit. So, as one might imagine, I have slight problems in communicating with people for whom these things hold importance. And, while it's a stereotype and I hate using it to prove a point as there are many amazing people out there to whom this does not apply, a large chunk of the female population fall into this materialistic category. I am, at this moment in time, a seventeen year old girl. I went to an all girls school for eight years. I was miserable. Trust me on this one.

Disclaimer: Not all bitches. Just many.
Personal experience

So that in mind, I find myself in Spain with the intention of improving my espanol. A country quite different to my own culturally, geographically, temperaturally (that's a word, right? I think my brain melted over there, apologies)

Must... resist... all pulp fiction references...
Must not... offend locals.

I'm nervous as hell because I'm afraid I won't be able to communicate with people in much the same way I've had trouble in the past. I try to make friends. And here's the funny thing. It's about as difficult. I found speaking in a different language on par to speaking in my own language to someone with whom I have nothing in common. Because to me, speaking to the latter, for me, is like trying to speak a language I am not fluent in. It's forced and I come off as either stupid or really quiet and awkward. And I'm not quiet and awkward. Not at heart. At heart I'm a person who can speak at length about the things I care about. Those things just don't happen to be things you care about.



I'm not going to directly address my attitudes towards many of the girls who fall into the "bitches be cray" category, I'll cover that at length very soon. Trust me. Because I have words to say and goddammit, I'm gonna yell them into the abyss of the internet until I die, regardless of who may hear them. I'm sorry if I came off as a terribly person here, I'm only mostly awful. Cling to the spec of good,  it's all I have.

Embrace the Madness