Time to Talk

Last time, we talked about getting back in touch with your friendship.

Let's review a little. Third wheel relationships are very inconvenient for that person left behind. The common denominator in the third wheel situation is a state of emotional free-fall. Whether spoken or recalled or not, people develop really intense feelings and connections in a strong friendship. We usually capture snapshots of such strong connection through photographs, stories, jokes, and camaraderie, and a good collection generates a really strong emotional high. The more distance that grows in this third wheel arrangement, the more literal distance we place between ourselves and that intensely powerful friendship.

If the third wheel situation is left unattended, that hurt can go from dismissed or unattended into profound outbursts. It is a time bomb. Pretending that it will go away or work itself out is false from the start, and it just sets you up for more harm in the long run. So, do yourself a favor and do your relationship a favor by standing up for it.

In this entry, we're going to talk about talking it out.

Take blame out of the equation.
Pretend for a moment that I said this to you...

You know what? You never even bother to try to talk to me anymore. I just call you up and leave messages and you can't be bothered to return a phone call. You don't care about me!

If I went off on you like that, chances are you won't feel sorry for me or care what I think.

Whenever our feelings hurt, we try to blame the other person for causing the problem that in turn made us feel terrible. In order to dignify that hurt, we need to change tactics here. Like I said last time, you can't control the ebb and flow that happened to get your third wheel into motion.

People go through changes, plans get made, events of importance pop up. People fall into and out of love. People go through tough times and great ones. Blessings come and go. Bills are here to stay. Problems might be, too.

A lot of life just happens. Even the most vigilant friends cannot predict when things spin out of control, and neither can you. You can only control how you respond to the changes. Naturally, blaming someone for things that were out of their grasp is just such a trap.

How do we diffuse blame?
To do that, you need to start thinking in terms of "I-statements". Think about it this way. You know how you feel. You are in control of your feelings. You're not a mind reader, just like you are less certain of how other people feel in a dilemma. As appreciated as it is to express empathy, sometimes it's more helpful and solution-minded to stay in your own head and thoughts. Start the conversation from there and then try figuring out where your friend comes from.

We'll return to blame in a moment.

Good self-focused statements have a few components to them.
First, they are built around a "trigger." A trigger simply refers to a preceding event or situation that gives you the opportunity to attach a feeling to it. For instance, if I said, "Whenever I go for a bike ride on the trail, I feel such-and-such way," the trigger is riding a bike on the trail. The trigger is the condition that enables a positive feeling to emerge.

Second, you need a strong feeling-statement. It's the "such-and-such" in the previous example. Good feeling statements use specific emotion-focused language that really crystallize what the trigger experience does to you.

If I said, "Whenever I go for a bike ride on the trail, I feel happy," that doesn't help much. The statement is grammatically correct, but it doesn't really help that other person get inside my head. "Happy," albeit positive, is a pretty weak feeling-statement because of its nonspecificity. In other words, plenty of things make us "happy." What's the big hairy deal about riding on the trail?

Weak:
Whenever I go for a bike ride on the trail, I feel happy.

Improved:
Whenever I go for a bike ride on the trail, I feel my worries slip away.

Even better:
Whenever I go for a bike ride on the trail, I can just focus on enjoying the weather and leave all my troubles behind. It really relaxes me and puts me at ease.

To review, a good I-statement includes (1) a triggering experience that sets the stage for a good feeling and (2) the good feeling that emerges from it. Statements need both parts to be correct. Statements should also include specific language that really helps the other person understand where you're coming from.

In this exercise, these kinds of I-statements are helpful because they are ultimately helping us get in touch with how we feel about our friendships. Trigger phrases can resemble one of any number of good times you have a friend: going out to the movies, playing video games together, enjoying a happy hour, or taking a road trip, or so on.

When you're ready to talk with your friend, these statements start to change form a bit. I will explain this in more detail below.

Let's begin blameproofing.
Okay, so it's all fine and good to talk about bike rides, but your buddy just ditched you and you're sick of putting up with it!

Fair enough. You're mad. I get it, and it's good you're acting on it. But if you start off an I-statement with...

Whenever you can't be bothered to return my phone calls no matter how many times I leave a voicemail, I feel like it's my right to kick your ass.

You lost.

You lost control and you got out of your head. The only "I" in that sentence referred to you leaving a voicemail. The facts become debatable, and your friend might not even be in the mood to feel sensitive after you just hit him over the head with blame. Right in the kisser.

Remember the primary rule. The relationship got out of control, and pointing fingers won't get things back into place. You can only control your reactions.

Let's repair that outburst.

The respondent started out, Whenever you can't be bothered to return my phone calls...

Staying in touch via telephone is the trigger statement. However, the emotional response is pretty strong and we have no clue about the facts. Whenever we become angry or resentful, the facts are usually the first thing to give way to that emotional outburst.

Simply put, accusatory second-person language can't fit into a trigger, much less a self-directed feeling. So if you see the word "you" in there, it should probably get cut out. The first-person "I" is good, but it only belongs in a trigger if you're talking about yourself. Good triggers in a heart-to-heart chat mention neutral, collective activities that can evoke a positive feeling. In other words, you'll need to talk about the times in which you feel connected to your buddy. It sets the stage for talking in more detail about what you miss, what went wrong, and so forth.

Instead of "you," try "we."

Weak:
Whenever you can't be bothered to return my phone calls...

Improved:
Whenever time goes by and we are unable to talk on the telephone...

The who's who of initial phone contact is clearly less important than the actual lack of communication going on. Saying it like that may help your friend recognize when a call wasn't returned or how long it has been since plans were made. It may, and that's good; or it may not. Don't get hurt. That's okay. You are not starting out with blame and you are setting the stage to be heard and respected. That's way more important!

Now, the feeling depicted was an action: "I feel like it's my right to kick your ass." And certainly not an action worth following (especially if your friend can go toe-to-toe with you). The feeling is pretty clear. Anger would motivate someone to get into a fist fight.

Remember the reaction I gave you to the word "happy?" Anger is also a nonspecific feeling-state. If you need help remembering nonspecific feeling statements, say this rhyme to yourself.

glad
sad
bad
mad

Again, we know what these words mean. We get the gist of how people use them. Unfortunately, they don't really help us understand our friend to any degree of depths. Life in general can make us feel glad, bad, sad, or mad at any given point. You want to stick with specific, powerful language that really makes your feelings come alive.

You wouldn't feel so hot knowing that despite how much fun you have with your friend, the best you can come up with is "glad." True?

Threats of butt-kicking aside, let's correct the latter part of the sentence. How does this sound to you?

Whenever time goes by and we are unable to talk on the telephone, I feel out of sorts.

The impact of not speaking regularly becomes clear. Feeling out of sorts is a good way to describe, perhaps, the imbalance of not staying in touch. The friend talking right now is referring to a comfortable routine that involves, at the very least, just speaking with some regular contact. The phone calls could be quick chats or more thought-provoking conversations. In any case, if they don't happen, the friend feels disoriented and out of touch.

If given the floor to speak further, the friend could go into greater detail. Subsequent statements should elaborate on that "out of sorts" feeling. Elaborate at will. Just remember to keep the "you" out of it. You're talking about disorientation you personally experience and you're still in your own head right now. Help your friend experience the disorientation.

Practice, practice, practice!
I strongly recommend practice for blame-proofing. It is easier to practice on your own because the friend and the relationship giving you grief aren't in your face. The more adept you feel at writing and speaking positive, helpful language, the easier it will come out in a dialogue session.

Remember that you will make mistakes. You won't get those perfect sentences on the first try. If I'm doing any writing, I like to do it with two pens. A pen is good for the exercise because it is much harder to erase than a pencil. That said, if you goof up, it gives you a better opportunity to see the mistake and then go about correction. The first pen, of course, is for writing what comes into head. Don't think too much. Just write it out. The second pen is for revision.

Has a problematic "you" shown up? Are you triggering with anger instead of neutrality? Would a "we" sound better here? How's that feeling word? Does it help your reader understand you better?

Mark through troublesome words and phrases and write an improvement above them. Don't let the red ink trouble you. You're supposed to get better with practice.

Try these exercises.

Exercise 1:
Glad, sad, bad, and mad. These are good-for-nothing words. Enhance your emotional vocabulary. Fold a sheet of notebook paper lengthwise and then widthwise so that you have divided it into four sections. In each section, write a generic word in capital letters. Fill each section with more powerful descriptive terms. Feel free to use a thesaurus and write until unproductive.

Exercise 2:
Stay in your own head. Write down ten positive experiences you create in your own spare time. Be sure that each statement has a well-defined trigger phrase as well as a definite feeling-statement attached to it.

Exercise 3:
Go a little deeper. Review the statements you did in Exercise 2. Copy down a statement from the previous exercise, and then elaborate further. Write an additional sentence to develop that feeling for a reader.

Exercise 4:
Be wary of blame. Leaf through a magazine or read some blog entries online. Take note of any statements prominently featuring second-person language like "you." Is there blame going on here, or not? If it looks like a blame sentence, copy it down and correct it.

In our final episode of the Third Wheel series, we will discuss what happens after the talking.