We Need to Talk

The talk.

Those two words carry a variety of connotations within the dating scenario. None of those are good. In fact, those are the two words that will inevitably make a man run to the hills like there's no tomorrow and he's being chased by a pack of wolves.

In this scenario, you are the pack of wolves, of course.

I, for one, hate the talk.  I would much rather do as I have done in the past and ignore the situation all together because the idea of verbalizing what's going in my head makes me want to throw up (and head to the hills like I'm being chased by a pack of wolves).

Perhaps it's because I am not one for confrontation to the ones I care about, or perhaps it's because I'm afraid of the outcome of these so-called talks. In my current relationship, the talk has loomed over my head for a while now, and like Marie Antoinette, beheading is imminent, at the very least.

 So, do I drink a bottle of wine and let the words come out as they may, or do I formulate an apologetic, yet direct and assertive, speech designed to explain the innermost workings of my troubled brain? I could keep quiet, but if past performance is any indicator of the success of that tactic, I'm in for a lot of trouble and heartache.

It seems to me that no matter what choice I take, I risk getting hurt. Then again, isn't that the nature of relationships?

Like any good composition teacher, I know that it's all in the rhetorical situation. I mean, I'm not going to drop this talk in the middle of a group hangout, or in the middle of other activities. The time and place has to be (not necessarily perfect) acceptable to have a conversation that will hopefully clarify the reality of the situation versus the mess that's going in my head.

Because the fact of the matter is that as much as I would like to, my boyfriend cannot read my mind, and I cannot divine his. Even more so, the more I try to imagine what's going on through that mind of his, my inner self-hater interjects with a few choice ideas on how I'm awful, and how he's probably re-thinking the whole relationship every single second of every single day.

I know that some of this is on me, and I, for one, am trying to sort the mess that's in my head and understand that reality does not match my thoughts, especially those self-hating ones laced with abandonment issues. Then again, once I finish having "the talk" with myself, I can start thinking of way of having "the talk" with him.