Communication is essentially the creation of meaning, and the giving and taking thereof. However, since we live in a fallen world (and not in physics textbooks where we can always assume that friction = 0), a gap often occurs between what is said and what is understood.
One way to explain this would be to look at what communication theorists (specifically Shannon and Weaver) call "noise." When we send out our messages (think of a radio broadcast that sends out signals), these same messages are often disturbed by noise in the form of other messages or signals that go out in the same channel simultaneously. When such a disturbance happens, a discrepancy between the transmitted message and the received signal is created.
Noise can take many forms. Say for example, you are on the phone with a friend. He sends out his primary message - he lingually and linguistically transmits an auditory signal via the telephone cables from his mouthpiece to yours. Pero pasigaw ang pagsabi (as in para kang 5-year-old na sinisigawan ng nanay mo kasi nakabasag ka ng baso.) Naglalaban tuloy ang isip mo - may naririnig kang mga salitang binibigkas, pero naririnig mo rin na sinisigawan ka! (At hello, buti na lang di tayo magkaharap kung hindi baka nasaktan na kita!) So, kahit na siguro gusto lang niyang magpaliwanang nang saloobin niya, may natatanggap ka ring mensahe na inaaway ka niya. That, my friends, is noise at work. (Some may argue that the volume of my friend’s voice is not noise per se but merely the manner by which he communicated his primary message, and is, therefore, still merely an essential and inextricable part thereof. So it cannot be considered noise in the strictest sense of the word. Be that as it may, I will still consider it noise if only for the fact na masakit talaga sa tenga ang boses ng mamang `to lalo na kung medyo galit na siya.)
Another way of looking at it is by using the Osgood and Schramm model of communication which posits that when we communicate, we encode or encrypt our message in a language before we transmit it to our message’s receiver. The receiver must then decode and interpret the message. The assumptions are: 1. the language is known to both parties, 2. both parties have the necessary means of decoding the message.
We all know what this means. Pag sinabi ni Abdel na malapit na siya, code words lang yon for: 45 minutes pa ako. Kakasakay ko lang ng taxi, eh. (Hahaha, I love you Abdel!) Alam ko lang to kasi sa lahat ng pagkakataon na nakipagkita ako kay Abdel, never pa siyang nakarating on time. So, the language is known to both of us, and we both have the necessary means of decoding because of experience.
Anyway. Serious uli. Nakaka-frustrate lang kasi na no matter how many times we (not Abdel and me, ha) attempt to iron things out (whatever this phrase means for both of us - malamang magkaiba rin kami ng operational definition nito), parang hindi talaga kami magkaintindihan. Pareho naman kaming reasonably intelligent human beings. Pareho naman (yata) naming gustong magkaunawaan. Gaya nitong huling usapan. Sinikap ko namang ipaliwanang sa kanya ang nararamdaman ko. Akala ko, ok na. Gets niya na. Pero parang hindi pa. Minsan gusto kong isipin na na deliberately misunderstands - pero alam ko namang hindi.
Ngayong nahimasmasan na ako, naiintindihan ko na na may expectations nga ako. Eto yon: na hindi saktan, to be treated fairly, to be treated as a friend. If he needed space, he should have articulated it clearly in the first place. Hindi yung bigla siyang magiging malamig at lalayo sa akin. Kasi pag ginawa yon ng isang kaibigan sa akin, ang reaction ko siyempre something’s wrong, or I did something wrong. So itatanong ko kung bakit. But if he just came right out and said it, I would have understood, and I would have appreciated the fact that he values me enough as a friend to treat me fairly.
Ang problema nga kasi, nagkaroon ng gap between what he said and what he meant. What he said was "Let’s stay friends." Apparently ang ibig pala niyang sabihin "I’m uncomfortable. I can’t do this." That’s what happens when we assume that both parties in communication are equally versed in the same language and are both proficient in the encoding-decoding process. Kasalan ko ba kung hindi ako marunong ng malespeak?
Because that’s how you treat your friends - with fairness, justice, equity, etc., etc. That’s not too much to ask. And if your so-called friends say that this is not something you can expect from them, they’re not really your friends.
