Relationships
tiredI’ve spent a lot of the past few days thinking and talking about relationships. All kinds of relationships – some friends I have passed time gossiping, I’ve chatted with various people about student relations, and even other blogs have talked about relationship-building.
One thing that strikes me is how much happens in the subtext, in the way we communicate. Two examples:
- I nearly always write the daily agenda on the board, and then I sit in front of the board. I still have students who come in and ask “what are we doing today?” I used to snap at them to read the board, until I figured out that they’re really saying, “hi. Notice me.” So now I do.
- A friend called me yesterday and left a voice mail that was basically, “I need to ask you something. Call me back at work or on my cell.” When I called back, he wanted me to pass along a message to someone else that she should call him because he needed to ask her a question. Okay, so first, why did he call me? (Answer: presumably he doesn’t have her cell number, though he does have the number of at least one other person he could have tried.) Second, why not just leave a message that said, “Can you ask Jane to call me?” Why specifically ask me to call back? It finally occurred to me (and I do kind of hope he doesn’t read this blog) that perhaps it was something like #1. “Call me, I want to talk to you.” Of course the reason that occurred to me is…
I was walking around the airport with a couple of hours to kill due to a delayed flight. I have plenty to entertain me (I’m sure my students would be thrilled if I graded some of their work that I downloaded!) but I really wanted to talk to someone. I ended up calling that same friend and he didn’t answer. I did leave a complete message. (“I didn’t see Jane, so I couldn’t pass on your message.”) but what I really wanted was to talk to him. I almost called various other friends just to have a conversation. (Instead I ruminated on relationships. Aren't you lucky?)
Other things that have happened that have been interesting, though I may not expand on them too much:
- I had lunch with my “high school sweetheart” who I hadn’t seen in probably 15 years. It was absolutely lovely, though lovely doesn’t have quite the right tenor, since I walked in wisecracking and that rather set the tone for the afternoon. It was definitely not lovely in the fuzzy-around-the-edges romantic movie kind of way, which was perfect. And it was not uncomfortable for a moment, which was also perfect. (Ironically, I was so much less nervous about seeing this person than the last old high school friend I reunited with, where I practically had a nervous breakdown. That one went better than anticipated, as you might guess.) Perhaps the weirdest thing about the day is how OLD we are. How can I be old enough to have not seen him for 15 years? How can we be old enough to both be managers and be able to discuss things like investments? So weird. Another weird moment was when I found out he’d looked up my blog. Dude? You need to get a blog so I could have had the same advantage!
- I got to have dinner last night with a retired WNBA player. She was totally awesome, mostly because she is very, very smart and very nice. I did not get a picture with her, which I regret, but really it was nicer not to be a fangirl. Instead we talked about computer science and other things.
- Telle Whitney said hello to me! That was another shocker of a moment - Telle Whitney knows who I am. Also Susan Rodger was nice to me. In general I do not expect to be recognized other than by people I know well. Which is an increasing number of the people at the meetings I was at, which makes them increasingly fun to attend.
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