Choosing a Board of Friends

Miscommunication is a big issue. I would dare say that it’s kind of a minefield that is our own creation .. It begins a second after we make the first contact with a person and comes to an end with an impressive explosion...

Our biggest mistake is that, for no good reason, we almost always assume complete alignment in both sides’ expectations without trying to pick our partner’s brain in order to figure out what his expectations from us are. There is one thing, however, that we are in complete alignment with our partner on – he also doesn’t miss an opportunity to widen this expectation gap…. And there is no one out there to alert us of the coming clash.

There are many sources of miscommunications and they are mostly related to our different personalities. Squared personalities are likely to miscommunicate with liberal ones, and aggressive personalities will find a hard time aligning expectations with passive ones. But this is easy to identify – we all know squared from liberal, and aggressive from passive.

But, what if they are very different, only they cannot realize it. Imagine to yourself that there is a kind of a personality gap that exists but that we are not aware of. Nobody has ever traced it, warned about it, investigated it…NOT EVEN FREUD!!

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduced you to a new type of personality that we all share: The FULL CIRCLE versus the HALF CIRCLE personalities!!

Note - A behavioral guidance – when you read the coming analysis try to figure out which of the two personalities describe you best and at the same time try to figure out who your partner in life is. If you discover that you are of different types – as the Bono sings “we are one but we are not the same” – then you should be very happy because you may have just discovered the root-cause for many of your differences! If, on the other hand, you are of the same type, then I’m sorry but I can’t help you understand why your relationships look like shit…

So here we go…

We humans are divided into two. Some of us are the ‘full-circle’ types, a self-contained person that feels totally natural to be by himself. Yes, he needs a partner, yes he wants a partner, and yes he is in constant search for a partner. Absolutely! all true! ... BUT, until he has found his dream partner, he CAN survive without one. And, once he has found one, he wishes to continue living his life, shoulder to shoulder with his - hopefully full circle - partner.

The other side of humanity is comprised of the “half-a-circle” types – (no, it's not full circles that got damaged during the delivery) - … Yes, they need a partner, yes, they want a partner badly, yes, they are in constant, almost religious, search for a partner… and yes it’s on the same scale as matters of national security for them to find their partner because they just cannot live without one. And once they have found the miserable creature, THEY DO NOT LET GO! They will move to almost physically integrate with their victim in order to create one happy circle... and don’t give them this bullshit of living shoulder to shoulder! The Halves aren’t willing to compromise on anything less than starring one at the other from a zero distance for the rest of their lives. Nothing less intimate will satisfy their urge to integrate with another half and create a whole.

An interesting observation between the two types relates to the decision to let go of a partner. The full circle will naturally let go relatively quickly from a partner he lost chemistry with. The ‘half-a-circle’ types, on the other hand, will redefine the definition of ‘having mutual chemistry with their partners’ to be – ‘im hanging on to this B..ST..RD, , until I can safely replace him with a proper upgrade’.

Imagine to yourself the unbelievable dance taking place when a “half-a-circle” and a “full-circle” are trying to make one each other his partner, not being aware of their different geometries: the Half joyfully makes two steps forward, way past the comfort zone of the Full, who find this unexpected invasion to his personal zone a bit too intimidating. So he fixes this zone-invasion-problem by making a gentle step backward. Only problem is that by that he took the Half out of his comfort zone.... the Half is sure that the Full was making an innocent wrong move and kindly compensate with another step forward, the Full begins to be irritated and make another, bigger step backward.. the Half begins to suspect that there is nothing innocent about what is going on here and his next step is not gentle at all.. the Full.. the Half.. the Full and the half are pissed of off each other. They know why but for lack of proper terminology, they cannot properly explain their agony and they turn to the wrong places! If only they knew that one is a Half and the other is Full it could have saved them …

There is no single conclusion to this essay but there are a few action items:

1. Learn who you are
2. Learn who your partner is
3. Realize there is a difference.
3. Respect that difference!

actually, one conclusion: Live and let live.