You asked: Part 6

Can you go back through your archives and count the things that you promised to tell us/write about, but never did?
Question by concerned

Obviously, I am not going back to my archives and counting anything. I have much better things to do. Like, you know, following how Prisoner 9818783 is holding up. However, I thought I would use this opportunity to bring up a more general question: why do people make promises that they inevitably break?

Because they want to be liked. And because we think we know what would make the other person happy, I think.

The reason why I feel I can speak to this now, is that it's been recently discussed in the Kirilova-Grady residence on the count of my constant being late for meeting up my husband after work. See, he's a really nice man who picks me up after work and then we go home, or eat out, or run in the park, or whatever. Most of the time, however, he ends up growing a beard while waiting for me as I am at least 20 minutes late. EVERY TIME. And, yes, I always have some legitimate excuse and I am NOT being sarcastic when I say it. I am getting ready to leave and then a client calls or I see an email in my inbox and I decide to shoot a quick reply or I touch up my make-up or go chat with my boss just because...you get it.

Kyle hates it, of course. I mean, who wouldn't. And I hate me, for being so consistently dumb. So we did talk about it and have figured out that the process that goes through my mind goes something like this:

1. I want to meet up with Kyle as early as possible.
2. I think that Kyle would want to see me as early as possible.
3. I am going to try to leave as early as possible.
4. I will tell him to meet me early.

Clearly, there's a missing step between points 3 and 4, which should say: MAKE SURE I CAN LEAVE THE OFFICE EARLIER or something.

My point is that there are two things going on here: my intentions and that which could realistically happen. But my desire to do whatever I THINK would make Kyle happy, causes me to completely ignore the connection between the two. It's not that I am being a bad person or horrible wife or whatever. It's obviously caused by my desire to make my husband happy. However, it ends up having the complete opposite effect. The road to hell is covered with good intentions, right.

The reason why I am going into so much details here, narrating pretty personal things, is that I believe our little issue above illustrates how people end up disappointing each other when all they ever wanted to do was be good to one another. We want to be liked. And we think we know what would make the other person happy. That's why we make promises. That's why we sometimes tell lies. That's why we are late for dates even though we never thought we could make it. That's why we agree to things we knew there was no way in hell we would enjoy or be able to do in the first place.

I am not making excuses here. And I am not asking for forgiveness. Nor am I advocating delusion and naivete. The reason I am writing about this in the first place is to actually advocate a simple thing that Kyle often asks of me: communication. That's all.

And yes, my dear concerned, I promise to write about the difference between "being outgoing", "being chatty" and "actually communicating" some other time, honest. ;)