One of the great things about Face­book and Twit­ter is that I’ve been able to meet a lot of inter­est­ing peo­ple. Fur­ther, it’s been incred­i­ble to get back in touch with peo­ple I haven’t seen or talked to in ages. One inter­est­ing aspect of the recon­nec­tion, though, is that it reveals that many peo­ple are often peo­ple come at you with the an impres­sion of, or place they held, you from many years ago. There’s a pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive side to this real­ity.


The pos­i­tive is that it can, in many ways, give you a win­dow into how peo­ple viewed you in a par­tic­u­lar slice of time. Granted, most of us have our own fil­ters through which we peo­ple, that can color or cloud the view. But, for the most part, I find it inter­est­ing to hear peo­ple stroll down mem­ory lane–primarily because I see how much I’ve grown or changed over the years. Or, I see how much I haven’t. I actu­ally revel in being “the same ole’ Matthew” when it comes to things like being known as hav­ing a good sense of humor. To the extent that the essence of what you liked or loved about some­one remains in intact, you can pick up the friend­ship as if there was never a gap in time.


The down­side of peo­ple being stuck in a view of you from the past is that some seem inca­pable of mov­ing past that image. You poten­tially could spend hours walk­ing through, “Remem­ber when…?” “Do you still …?” The con­cise answers should pro­vide some clue that the answer is no; but, for some rea­son, some peo­ple don’t ge the hint and the con­ver­sa­tion quickly becomes uncom­fort­able and I’m left look­ing for an out. Worse, I just tighten up and become terse. This, admit­tedly, hap­pens when old high school friends call me Matt. I never liked Matt, but some­how every­one seems to think I was ok with it. Irre­spec­tive of what you remem­ber, I’m telling you now that I pre­fer to be called Matthew. Why all the ques­tions and agnst about my name?


I have seen this “stuck” issue reveal itself with rela­tion­ships. This can par­tic­u­larly arrise when bump­ing into, or recon­nect­ing with, old flames–real or would-be. Both men and women are guilty of run­ning into some­one they once had deep feel­ings for–even if not revealed. They run into the per­son after many years and expect them to be the same per­son they were way back when. Dis­may sets in when that per­son is not what they remem­ber. This issue also can sneak up on cou­ples that have been together for years. Peo­ple [should] grow and evolve over time. The trou­ble sets in when one or both of the peo­ple in a rela­tion­ship expect their part­ner to be the same for­ever. Unless dis­cussed and accepted, the result can be dis­ap­point­ment and/or resent­ment. One per­son could feel he/she is being left behind. The expres­sion “You’ve changed!” should not always be viewed as a bad thing.


As with most things I dis­cuss, I am will­ing to acknowl­edge that I am just as guilty as the next for show­ing some propen­sity for being stuck, and hold­ing peo­ple to pre­vi­ous opin­ions, actions or asso­ci­a­tions. It was really going through a divoce a num­ber of years ago that I really had a light shone on my own fail­ings as a part­ner, friend and fam­ily mem­ber.


I was guilty of hold­ing my father in a par­tic­u­lar place. My thoughts and actions were usu­ally dic­tated by this child-like box I reserved for him. I was inca­pable of see­ing my father in the present because I was too fixed on my rec­ol­lec­tions of my father in the past. Inter­est­ingly enough, as with many things, the more I looked back — with an open mind — the sil­lier the my issues appeared.


By no means did I write this as an admon­ish­ment. Quite the con­trary. I hope this serves more as a pre­cau­tion­ary note for all of us. Enjoy the thrill of recon­nect­ing with long-lost friends and fam­ily mem­bers. Just remem­ber, while it’s good to go have the “what have you been up to all these years?”; it’s para­mount that you “take them” where they are in the present. The same applies for sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers and fam­ily mem­bers that have been in your life for years. Peo­ple can, and should change. Their growth doesn’t have to be away from you. If you’re open, it can be with or along side your own growth and evo­lu­tion as an indi­vid­ual.


Just some­thing to think about.

Whether we acknowl­edge it or not, most peo­ple have a “phone voice” — par­tic­u­larly at work. But, as the hol­i­day approaches, and many peo­ple are headed home for the hol­i­days, I won­dered if peo­ple have a “home voice.” 

I became aware that when I visit my par­ents, my speech tends to tighten up. I speak more clearly with crisp enunciation.I have always had pretty relaxed speech when not in a class­room or work envi­ron­ment, but it was only lis­ten­ing to some friends shift, quite dra­mat­i­cally from one speak­ing voice to another that I take note that I did the very same thing.

My ver­sion of relaxed speech is still pretty proper, but there’s a clear dif­fer­ence when in the com­pany of my par­ents. I am cer­tain that  this is a bi-product of grow­ing up with pretty strict rules about speech and gram­mar. I would, at times, get stopped mid-sentence to iden­tify some­thing I said incor­rectly. Though frus­trat­ing at the time, I actu­ally appre­ci­ate it now. I did reach a point where I real­ized that I was a lit­tle tight around my par­ents, and had of a moment of release where I said to myself, “You know what? I’m 40+ years old. This is just how I talk. I am not going to change or apol­o­gize for it.”  I have, in large part, stuck to this release and am more relaxed around my par­ents now. How­ever, I would be lying if I said that I don’t still watch my pro­nun­ci­a­tion when I call or visit. The only thing I don’t do around my par­ents is swear like a drunken pirate. That’s just a mat­ter of respect.

What about you? Do you alter or tighten up your speak­ing voice when you’re in the com­pany of your par­ents or elder fam­ily fig­ures? If so, was this a prod­uct of you have a pretty straight line to walk in terms of your speech? Are you con­scious that you do it?