The Purpose of Communication

This morning I attended the monthly breakfast of the Association for Fundraising Professionals. I'm serving on the board of the Tucson Chamber Artists, and the guest speaker, Simone Joyaux, was conducting two workshop sessions on fundraising and board governance in the non-profit sector.

As I was listening to her, one corner of my brain was searching for a topic for today's post, and then she made two statements that lodged in that corner. The first thing she said was, "The purpose of communication is to nurture relationships." The second was how there is a fine line between "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and "Out of sight, out of mind."

Let's take Mr. Match as an example of this. For three months he has called every two or three weeks, saying "what we had was special, we can't throw it away; we need to talk." Then I'll hear nothing for two or three weeks until he calls again, saying the same thing. (Hmmm, do those calls only occur after the ingestion of two martinis? Was that also the case every time he told me he loved me?) I saw him ten days ago, after which he left for a week in Dallas. I have heard nothing since. Bear in mind that he has a cell phone and knows how to use it. He also carries a laptop with him and knows how to type.

If a man wants to have a relationship with me, he's going to have to communicate with me, more than one phone call every two weeks. He's going to have to nurture the relationship if he expects it to grow. In that absence of that nurturing on his part, there can be no relationship.