Communicating

I am the product of two extremes - my father's family only gets together once a decade, at most, and if they are in contact with one another in between those instances it is an occasion for maximum awkwardness, guilt and discomfort. My mother's family has organized weekly teleconferences in order to plan for an upcoming semi-annual reunion, and if more than a week goes by without some contact among any given pair of the nine siblings, it is an occasion for growing anxiety and guilt until the breach in communications has been repaired.

Is it any wonder, then, that the degree to which I stay in contact with friends and family varies wildly and wanders aimlessly from diligent and thoughtful to callous and distracted?

What does it mean when we fall out of touch with a friend or family member? Does it mean that we don't care for them anymore? Or does it merely mean we don't have enough time to spare them? Is that prioritization something that should be taken personally by the out-of-touchee? In other words, should the radio silence be interpreted as meaning that everything else in that person's life is more important than you are at this moment?

Of course this is an absurd point to contemplate. Of course the other aspects in another's life are more important to them than you are. They are the demands on his time, the requirements of his job, the needs of his children, his spouse, his own needs, desires and goals. You are external and peripheral to all that, and by definition take a secondary role in his life.

In fact, this is the root of my suspicion of those who are so diligent with their communication with others. There is a dishonesty at work, implying that you do occupy some level of importance in this person's life that demands regular and intense sessions of communication. In fact I suspect that one of the person in question's own intimate needs to be fulfilled is to feel as though he is doing a "good job" with keeping in touch. If he did not prioritize the weekly phone calls, the semi-annual reunions, the special trips and the like, he would feel the other party would think him negligent in his communication duties, and would feel bad about himself. In other words, the real priority is always the self, not the other. Interpersonal relations quite naturally obscure and confuse this basic point of human nature, because it entails a commingling of two impulses with diametrically opposed goals - each to fulfill its own, self-contained needs.