I read somewhere that there are an estimated 250 different
dialects spoken in China. I am starting
to think there are actually millions of dialects of every language spoken worldwide,
and that understanding this may be the first key to relationships.
I’ve spent more time than is healthy considering the
dynamics of relationships, love, marriage, and (God help us all) dating. And in my search for the answers to how these
things work, I’ve decided there are no answers, or to be more specific, an
innumerable number of answers. No two
people are alike, we all know that. So
how could there be a checklist of to-do’s and not-to-do’s that would give
everyone the ability to breeze through dating and love like a car with bad
breaks on San Francisco’s Nob Hill?
I know many couples with years of successful marriage under
their belts. And many of them even seem
to have the great gift of being happy in
them too. So what is their secret? How did they find this perfect mate, and how
did they stay “right” for each other?
Did they read some Dr. Spock-of-Dating book and get lucky with the
advice they chose to take away from it?
We they “raised right” or have some closely-held information handed down
from generation to generation that gave them the key? Did they meet on “The Love Connection” and go
down in game show history?
My theory is simple.
They speak the same language.
More specifically, they speak the same dialect.
It just seems like some couples understand each other better than others. Notwithstanding the debate over
soda/pop/coke, ya’ll/you guys, etc – I think there are just certain
combinations of language, eye contact, body language, chemistry, and maybe
thought patterns that give certain people an advantage when communicating with
each other. You may be perfectly content
with the adequate level of communication you have with most people in your
life, including family (who, in this theory, can speak as many different
dialects as China) but have that one person that just “gets” you like no
other. You would still argue. You’d still irritate each other. But you would have that certain “one-up” on
everyone else, because you both speak dialect 2,378,357.
Example: When a guy says, “I’ll call you”, and his
girlfriend interprets that as, “I’ll call you in five minutes because I’ll miss
you so much for the next four minutes” – and then he doesn’t call for an hour
and finds her pissed off and making no sense – they are both left wondering
what the hell just happened. Obviously,
they speak a different dialect. But when
the same guy says that very thing to his NEW girlfriend (we all knew that
break-up was coming), she may actually hear what he says, understand it, and
happily answer an hour later when the phone rings. It’s simple.
So, as much as I love to cling to the annoyingly-romantic
idea of fate, I think this makes much more sense. I think there is something in our make-up as
humans that makes us uniquely in tune to some others, but not all others. Something that makes each combination of
people different. Something that gives
some couples that special bond, other couples a basic compatibility, and the
rest a recipe for disaster and domestic violence. At some point, the great couples found one of
the people that share their dialect.
They didn’t just get lucky. They
listened…
