For a quarter-century, I have been baffled by the quixotic communication pattern of people in all walks of life, representatives of every income and ethnic and religious category. What is with them, not having the time or courtesy for a simple e-mail requiring at most sixty seconds to answer a question? And what is there to make of a student who is simultaneously requesting grant support and not responding expeditiously to a request from the checkwriter?
Split families, sexual identity questions, mental and physical health problems, job frustrations, romantic entanglements, fatigue from working two jobs, documentation issues, irritating professors, dishonest friends, pressure from being an only child, pressure from being the younger sibling of a successful older brother or sister who are perpetually put forth as role models, transitional difficulties in going from a small town to urban America, cultural adjustments of all kinds, a realization that everything prior to a first real career job is in some sense encapsulated in a bubble – I get it, lots going on — but no time for providing a minute’s worth of information that completes the decision-making loop?!
It is not as if the desire for communication is rooted in a quest for a specific positive outcome; it is simply a desire to know, “what is happening, what is going on with respect to what you indicated about your path (which included financial support, either in fact or projected from the fellow, me, who needs the communication). Note that whenever a young person has asked what I expect from them, my answer has always been, “be the best you can be for yourself.”
Disingenuous communication is definitely not a goal, nor is a collection of words which drain the energy of the recipient, annoyed that the information feedback loop remains frustratingly incomplete.
Non-communication situations come in multiple varieties, but what do I make of Kalvin, seemingly (hopefully) a true outlier.
It seemed to be going okay from the initial interaction through the first three years of college, then radio silence. No response to any type of communication short of carrier pigeons. A policeman friend did a wellness check. Yes, Kalvin was alive.
Not long thereafter, we re-connected. In short order, we had set up a time for a one-hour phone call every other Tuesday. All good, or so it seemed for several months through graduation.
And then, without a hint of negativity about our conversations, nor with a heads-up regarding a need for substantive change, radio silence returned.
This time, my attempts at finding out the “why” behind Kalvin’s action were supplemented with indirection. Besides every conventional attempt to connect, I mailed books (ones I had read and believed would be of interest to Kalvin) to his home and I even placed a book in his mailbox. When I saw on LinkedIn that he had landed a position with a non-profit agency in New York City, I commented that it was great to see he had found meaningful work, his longstanding goal.
I know people are videos, not snapshots, but I had interacted with Kalvin for five years. What happened?
Yes, juggling all the oranges of life (or are they more like bowling balls on occasion) is a challenge for any young person. But wait, that is true regardless of age. Help!
(Explanatory suggestions/guesses as to what might have happened are hereby solicited.)