Monday, August 06, 2001

Representational Systems

No, I'm not talking about governmental systems here. As described in Lucy & Dennis Guernsey's Real Life Marriage, representational systems (or personal maps) deal with the different ways that people interact and view the world around them. There's not a whole lot about this on the web (but drop me a line via WuphonsReach at yahoo.com if you know of any), but simply described there are three methods of interaction and each person usually has a preferred method (or two):

Visual or Seeing - These people tend to learn through watching a task being done. They usually like to read and things are more real if they are written down.
Auditory/Tonal or Hearing/Speaking - These people learn best by listening to a lecture. They can recall details about the conversation (perhaps even produce a transcript).
Kinesthetic or Feeling/Touching - Kinesthetics are big on "gut feelings" and learning through hands on activities. They can be very good at picking up on the mood of a room or body language of another person (and will find that more real than what the person looks like or what they are actually saying). Kinesthetics will have often developed visual or auditory skills to help them deal with the primary teaching methods of the educational system (lectures, assigned readings).

So why do I bring all this up? Because my last girlfriend was auditory/tonal as her primary method and her least preferred method of communication was kinesthetic; I, on the other hand, am primarily kinesthetic with some visual and my least preferred method of communication is auditory/tonal. That means that we always felt like the other wasn't "communicating" when in fact we were doing just fine (at least initially) but we weren't able to read the other person's signals. Somehow we managed to date for about four years... but we never made it past being very good friends (there was no vibrancy, no rush of immediacy). Now, as I get ready to start dating again, I'm planning on paying more attention to little details like how the other person likes to communicate (things that I didn't know five or ten years ago). I didn't function well in a relationship where touch was so low key and infrequent (I would often get to the end of a weekend and realize that I could count the number of touching events on one hand ... that I was unconciously keeping track of that was a sign of trouble). Then I would get together with another circle of friends where touching was frequent and casual and would drive myself to distraction wondering if I was making the right decision dating the person that I was currently dating and whether it was cheating to wish that I was dating someone who was more touchy like the friends that I was with. So, if there has to be a single reason why I stopped dating my last girlfriend, it would have to be the communication issue, about how isolated I would feel after a weekend of trying to communicate through opposite methods.

Of course, being kinesthetic has other disadvantages. I'm a sucker for touch. Which would surprise a lot of people who know me because I used to be very reactive if someone would touch me without my permission or without warning. I have a very strong sense of personal space that I don't like violated by people that I don't trust/know. I find it very difficult to lie with my body language, so if I don't like the person who's invading my personal space I tense up and get very stressed. Since I don't like being tensed up, I tend to keep a certain amount of distance from other people that I don't know/trust. (Being on a crowded train is an interesting experience for me; trying because of the close proximity, but easier because of the anonyminity of the encounter. Usually, I keep to myself and try not to infringe on the other person's space unless forced to.) Being a sucker for touch can be translated as "wears his heart on his sleeve" because proximity has a strong role in my attraction towards a gal. Having been around long enough; I realize that weakness and am less foolish than I was growing up.

No, I guess this entry really doesn't have a point to it... just trying to lay the groundwork for what comes along in the future.

posted by Wuphon's at 7:41 PM