Wooing!  Lying?

Often, during the process called wooing, people do not reveal their true self..  When we were wooing, my wife-to-be phoned me often.  I was in the U.S.A.  She was in England.  We had met at a dance in England.  I was still working in the U.S.A.  She was still working full time.  We emailed a great deal in the early weeks of courtship, but after that she wanted me to phone everyday.

International phone calls are cheap: as little as six dollars an hour and she wanted to talk for an hour.

Long ago I told my kids, and anyone else who engaged me in a conversation, any conversation, over the phone, I told them all that I hated to talk on the phone.  You can’t see who you are talking to.  You can’t base what you say on the way what you say is received: you don’t see any facial reaction.

I hate small talk.  I hate to talk on the phone. And with her, I talked an hour a day virtually everyday for nine months -- until we go together permanently in one house on one continent.

Why did I do it?  I did tell her, early on, that I didn’t like to talk on the phone -- and I especially didn’t like long phone calls.  But she loved long phone calls.  She like to talk on the phone.  And gradually, I relented.

Why not?  She likes it.  I have nothing better to do.  So it costs a $100 a month, $130 a month.  If she were over here, with me, I’d spend hundreds & hundreds on her -- taking her out to dinner, perhaps sending her flowers.  What’s $100 a month.

I did not realize the harm.  Not infrequently, she says to me she thought I loved to talk, and now I don’t talk much.

I am not much of a talker.  I lived alone for fifteen years.  Even before that, I didn’t like to talk to people.  I kept to myself.

I did not realize that a great deal of her image of me came from those hour long phone calls -- for nine months, daily, every single day.

And we wrote many emails.  I have always been good at talking to people when people are not there -- these radio talks, letters via email.

I did not mean to deceive; I did mean to try to please.  What is courtship: trying to get the other to like you because you like them.  So you try to please.  And I said what harm can there be from me talking to her for an hour a day.  We do need to get to know each other.  we do need to talk and we are six thousand miles apart.

But I unconsciously deceived when I tried to please.  I do not talk much in our marriage.  I have heard my thoughts so often -- and the thoughts of my thousand upon thousand students I listened to for over thirty years -- that I don’t talk much, don’t discuss much, don’t want to hear other people’s thoughts, or much about their lives.  I’ve heard too much

I’m talked out, listened out -- but I displayed none of that behavior when she and I were getting to know each other -- during our year long courtship.

 

Copyright © 2004   Henry Morgenstein

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