We Need To Talk

“We need to talk”…The four words that some love to hear. The four words that I hate to hear. I tend to get nervous every time I hear someone tell me this, especially a female. Why? I don’t know. I just don’t like to hear it. I guess that I automatically assume that there’s going to be something wrong. I mean, if we are holding a decent conversation and there was something good that you wanted to tell me, you’d just tell me, right? You wouldn’t reserve a totally different conversation for good news. The only thing that you could possibly save for a totally different conversation is bad news. Maybe you needed time to build up to the bad news or you just need time to let me down easy, as it were. Usually when people say they need to talk to me, it’s because there’s something that I am required to do, never them. It also sends you into this deep abyss of thought trying to figure out what you could have possibly done wrong so you can fix it before this person has “the talk” with you. I know, crazy right?!!! Dig it, some of my life’s favorites “We need to talks” would be: “Golphin, we need to talk...Your work schedule is 8am to 5pm, not 11am to 3pm with at 2 hour lunch.” or the ever so popular “P, we need to talk. I can’t see you anymore…I’m gay now.”…and let’s not forget “Patrick, we need to talk. I’m pregnant…and no, it’s not yours.” I will admit that the negative affect that this phrase has on me is not always the case. I’ve had people say they needed to talk to me and it turned out to be nothing bad at all. So I basically went into convulsions and cold sweats for nothing. My stigma possibly derived from the fact that I have had more “bad” news followed by this phrase than “good” news. So what have I learned? I guess you could say that I have learned not to assume. They say when you assume, you make an “ASS” out of “U” and “ME.” I don’t know what they are talking about. I always thought that when you assume, it meant your “A” was going to “SSU” “ME”. Notice how things can get lost in translation? If there are others that feel the same way that I feel about this…we need to talk.

-p*a*n*a*m*a