I have been realizing more and more lately how relationships and communication seem to get harder and harder as I get older. My fist inclination towards this subject is that communication should get EASIER as I get older. After all, you live you learn, right? And I have learned plenty about relationships and how to deal with different people in my life. But I think the complexities come from age, not inexperience. What I mean is, as you get older, you have more baggage and more unhealthy patterns that you revert to during stressful times. It's not that you suck at communicating. It's that it takes more and more work to wade through the growing complications and make any sort of progress.
I am an eternal optimist at heart, even when the things I hope for are almost completely impossible. So I don't look at past baggage and growing issues as a reason to give up on communication. For the most part, I am always trying to do better and understand others better. But it does get discouraging at times when it seems like there is no way through the maze of misunderstandings and past damage done to a relationship. I have found that a lot of people find it difficult, if not impossible, to move on from things other people have done to them. This, obviously, puts up a barrier between open communication.
Wrongs of the past are not the only obstacles to good communication, either. The longer a person lives, the more they develop coping mechanisms for dealing with difficult things, and some of these can be detrimental to communication with other people. For example, if a person is an alcoholic, other people may not want to talk to that person because they are rude or angry all the time. Also, with alcohol constantly impairing him or her, the person may not have the mental capacity to even carry out a meaningful conversation. That's a simple example, but take into account that one person can have multiple problems hindering their communication and it is no wonder so many people find it so difficult.
I don't claim to be any sort of expert on relationships or communication. I am far from it. I am only drawing on my own experience and difficulties with communicating with people in my life. Sometimes I wish that if I had a super power it could be to make a person feel how I feel, and I could feel how they feel. If that happened, I think there would be a lot less misunderstandings. But since that is not likely to ever happen, I will just have to keep guessing at other people's feelings, and hopefully I will get good enough at it to someday have great relationships with all who I interact with.
