“You know where I got this recipe..” Selena started… and did not finish. That was the extent of that conversation.

Selena has a tendency of waiting for me to affirm her stories. I think when used sparingly this is a vital part of communication and storytelling, but I believe Selena overuses these stop-points. In this case, it was an improper place for an affirmation. “You know where I got this recipe…” / “Uh-huh” would be untrue, because I actually didn’t know where she got the recipe, the point of the story was disclosing that very information.

I recently brought this to Selena’s attention, and how her need for affirmation can hurt her storytelling ability, and in some cases actually put us in danger. For example, if Selena is driving and telling a story, if she gets to an affirmation point and it elicits no reaction, she will turn her head 90 degrees to look over at me, taking her eyes fully off the road. These moments tend to quickly end the anecdote, as I freak out that she’s not watching the road. Typically she retorts she wouldn’t have to look at me if I had just answered her in the first place.

Often I don’t realize that I am not answering her until she puts us in peril. In my head, I am affirming and following along. Unfortunately Selena isn’t in my head, and she has to read my mannerisms which have a bad habit of undermining my interest.

This is what happened in the earlier example. In my head I was thinking “No, where’d ya find the recipe?” and waiting to hear. But my mannerisms were: walking out of the room, sitting on the couch, and opening up a magazine. In retrospect, it’s not surprisingly that Selena read that to mean I wasn’t interested in what she was saying, and therefore stopped talking abruptly.