Panel discusses relationship woes
With Valentine’s Day swiftly approaching, love and the lack thereof were the main focuses of the Building Healthy Relationships Panel Wednesday, said David Bush, assistant director of the USU Counseling Center.
Bush, who hosted the event, said questions regarding love, getting into relationships, getting out of relationships and maintaining relationships were directed to the panel consisting of students Tyler Tolson, sophomore in graphic design and English, Crystal Degen, senior in public relations, Earnest Cooper, junior in speech and communications, and faculty members from the FCHD department, Thomas Lee and Brian Higginbotham.
The first question was, “If you don’t like someone, how do you let them down softly?” Bush said.
“Be honest. If you’re uncomfortable let him know, if you are interested be in a group setting,” Tolson said. “Honesty is the best policy.”
The rest of the panel concurred with Tolson. Bush then directed a question at the audience, asking if they could take ownership for communicating an interest when one didn’t exist.
“I like the sandwich effect,” Cooper said. “Compliment, issue, compliment. Say something like, ‘I like you, I’m not interested in you, but I’m really glad we’re friends.'”
The next question dealt with how a person can tell if someone’s not into him or her.
Bush said, “The real question is, do you really want to know?”
Degen also answered and said, “If he doesn’t take you out on a date and isn’t willing to spend more than $5 on you at McDonald’s, then he probably isn’t that interested.”
On a more serious note, Bush advised students to trust their own abilities to discern the answer to this question. Cooper agreed and said students should pay attention to what is really being said.
“You really need to look at the word usage. If he’s saying ‘Let’s hang out, I want to hang out, we should hang out sometime,’ chances are he just wants to hang out,” Cooper said. “The key is to ask for clarification.”
Tolson referred to Cooper’s sandwich analogy and told students to just put their sandwich on the table for their prospective partner to look at.
The second half of the hour, the panel focused on communication within relationships.
Lee focused on the importance of understanding someone’s love language, which basically consists of telling, touching and doing, he said.
“Reflect on your own. Think about your childhood and how your parents express love. It’s like someone speaking German to you, but you don’t speak German. The words are good, but the message isn’t getting across,” he said.
Text messaging was covered during the topic of communication, and was considered a positive form of communication by some panel members and negative by others, Bush said.
“Sometimes we think that technology is diminishing relationships, but it’s meaningful when someone texts to say ‘Hey, I was thinking about you,'” Cooper said.
Tolson said text messaging can be taken to the extreme.
“When you text excessively, you are missing out on a face to face conversation,” he said. “It’s dangerous because you don’t pick up on verbal and nonverbal cues.”
Lee said text messaging isn’t the best way to communicate in some situations.
“It’s not the way to tell someone you want to just be friends,” Lee said. “Some conversations should happen face to face.”
One question was aimed at overcoming the differences in the ways that boys and girls communicate in real life.
Degen said, “For girls, it’s to just not read into everything … Sometimes I’m like, ‘Ah! He touched my elbow!'”
Lee said students should look at similarities in communicating rather than differences.
“Rather than emphasize the differences between men and women, look at communication of good friendships and what kinds of things are important there can be applied here,” he said.
The panel addressed when it’s an appropriate time to get married.
Tolson said, “There are a lot of big decisions that we must make at this point in our lives. There come times when you have to just make a decision. Moving forward is good.”
Higginbotham said it’s important to work out any issues couples have before entering a marriage in order to keep the relationship as healthy as possible.
The last thing the panel talked about was defining love.
Lee said love needs a balance of passion (romance), intimacy (emotional connection) and commitment (loyalty).
Higginbotham said, “Love is a noun, but also a verb. You have to always work at it.”
Lee agreed with Higginbotham.
“Think of it as a feeling, an action, a decision,” he said.
–beck.turner@aggiemail.usu.edu