"Can we talk?"

In today's society there are certain rules and guidelines that everybody must abide by. Norms, socially accepted behavior, conformity. If you don't follow them, you're a weirdo, an outcast, undesirable.

One thing that I've been dealing with more and more with lately is the lack of confrontation. Now, let me clarify, I don't particularly like confronting people about things because that means there's something negative you actually need to talk about. I don't like making a big deal of things, either, but I'm the kind of person where, if something's wrong, I can't help but try to fix things or smooth it out. I want to communicate, but I'm finding that, for most people, that's not necessarily the case.

One thing I can't stand, that completely just confuses and befuddles, and buddoozles me is why, when somebody's at odds with somebody else, they choose to talk about it to everyone else besides the person who it actually concerns.

It's just high school, people tell me, or, it's just life. And I'm finding that for the most part, it basically applies to everyone. Most people hate and completely avoid confrontation. I'm not talking about violent, intrusive, aggressive confrontation. I'm talking about the more mature kind, where people sit down and talk things through, compromise. But I face up to it. Communication's the key, everybody says, but to me it seems, that the older you get, the less words have meaning. There was an acting piece for speech team, and one bit of wisdom that stuck with me: Adult conversation: who can talk the most but say the least.

How tragically accurate.

If you notice, in movies, or on TV shows, they'll always show the characters brazenly approach each other about the most trivial things. They're blunt and forward and they make it seem so common and so easy, but really, it's not like that at all. It's not easy, and it's not common. I really don't know anybody who does this. I've never encountered somebody who'll face me first about a problem. I'll mention something and they'll admit to noticing it, but, and I guess I'm just making assumptions here, they ignore it, hoping that it'll somehow go away.

That's not how it ever works out. It just grows and grows until it's a big elephant in the room, and it seems to be taking up all the space so every conversation feels tight and forced.

But I've realized it's not a good thing to do. I've found that if both people are willing to talk about it, it works out, but if one person exerts no effort, it falls flat and becomes excruciatingly awkward.

And that's one unwritten, unnerving rule society unknowingly seems to adhere to.