If you love someone, one would like to believe that they know it by your actions. Same with hate. But it is all those little feelings in between you have towards people that do not get translated properly from thought to deed, and I believe that this miscommunication is one of the major problems between people.

Say a boy has this girl he likes, a girl he has not really talked to but would like to get to know. In his head, he has made a decision that yes he interested in this girl and has in a way made this statement a fact, a law in his head that will affect some of his actions with regard to the girl. But say that all he can muster to do is say hello to her in passing, say, on the street where they have common reasons to be there, or in a coffee shop. And that's all he does, all he can ever muster to do. Say the girl takes this very casual greeting as nothing more than an invitation to reciprocate and then begins light conversation with him. While he hasn't acted fully on his intentions, he may see her response as a fulfillment of the ideas in his head about her instead of a reaction to tangible things she has witnessed from him. He interprets this as an opening for him to act further, and let's say he is rejected for whatever reason.

Everyone is afraid of rejection or of being wrong, when we approach someone with interest, whether friendship or more specific than that. But when you make up your mind about someone and you don't act fully on it, you run the risk of being misread or cheating yourself and the other person of what you really wanted to convey.

Say a guy is in what he and everyone that knows him would define as a terrible relationship, one that he has expressed he would rather let die on its own than kill off immediately. If he has it set in his mind that the relationship is doomed and will end and yet he maintains peace and some level of contentment with her for now, isn't he cheating himself and her of what is really his intentions? Say he is looking for some fight they have to be good cause to break up in the heat of the moment. Will she ever know what the real reasons are for them breaking up? And wouldn't you begin to question if what he has told you is really what he has agreed to himself is how he really feels? I would.

When you contradict yourself like this frequently enough, those closest to you drop their level of respect for you. They are no longer shocked by anything you do or say and don't take much that you say seriously, since you are not being true to yourself. They listen to your problems with a half-hearted ear, secretly longing for the time when you make up your mind and act on it for once.

I think this is how we most often mess up relationships. Either we haven't really made up our minds but are decidedly acting one way or another anyway, or we dilute out of fear in action what our thoughts should reflect. I do it myself, even though I believe this theory applies to everyone including myself. I try to act on what my thoughts have committed to, but often when I do, people are taken aback; they are not expecting this because the norm is to be less linear, to keep ambiguity at a high level so as to keep the other person curious, coming back for more because they really don't know what to expect. That wears off eventually for all of us.

If you are thinking of me, if I am in your thoughts, I should be made aware of it by your actions. There should little need for assumptions or guesswork. If I am thinking of you, you will be more than aware. If you don't know how you feel, your actions should reflect that. But it isn't that easy very often, sometimes because of the social dictums we are force fed to believe are the best ways to convey our thoughts and intentions: flowers, rings, kisses, letters, mind games, word play, innuendoes. If you have no intentions of kissing me, then don't talk about what it would be like. Don't flatter me like a man who wants to date me when all you really want me for is a friend. Don't feign love if you can't back it up with action. Don't mess with my head, and I will try not to mess with yours. Deal?

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