Don't ya just love subtext?

Damn if things still don’t keep popping up in Hang, waving a hand at me, walking over and introducing themselves, “You don’t know me and I think you should.”

Even some of the, “We’ve met and danced before and I think it’s time that we take another cut at it. I think you can take us deeper.”

Yesterday’s Hang was like that. 

I’m like, “I know this stuff. I understand it. I can recite chapter and verse.”

And, evidently, there is more to learn, more to feel, more to make-meaning about.

In a cartoony nutshell way, it’s about the signifiers and the signified in language.

It’s about subtext. 

It’s about, “You know what I mean.”

No, actually I don’t. 

I know that where you’re from or inside your own head, you understand what the subtext means. 

Not only am I not where you’re from, not only am I not inside your head with you, I have forgotten or misplaced a lot of the subtext labels. 

I truly do not know which subtext you are meaning to communicate when you say what you say. 

It’s one of the things that used to drive me crazy about Circling. 

People offering up their experiences as if I’m supposed to know what that means.
Offering me up bits of your experience does not make for a very meaningful dance to me.

I have no idea of where that is a suggestion to move to. 

Or even if it is. 

There is no dynamic tension in my experience when you offer me up a bit of your experience. 

There is no current.

There is no music.

And no, I am not interesting in asking you a lot of questions to try and find a lead.

I understand that it’s a great feeling to have someone follow a micro-lead.
I understand that it’s a great feeling to have someone know/guess correctly without you revealing. 

Last night, someone said, “How is that with you and that person? I’m jealous.” When the person they addressed that to responded to the question, they said, “I’m disappointed. I was hoping you would go after the, “I’m jealous part.”

If you want to see if the person is the sort of person who picks up on that, fine.

If you really want to dance with that, why not just dance with it?

Or the use of, “I love you.” 

I totally get how if someone says that, they are having stuff going on inside that they identify as love and they are attributing it to being about that person. 

If it’s a simple descriptive statement, such as, “I’m wearing underwear”, fine. 

I can deal with that.

If it’s a way of referring to subtext, I’m most likely, not going to get it.  

And I get the use of code and subtext to create and foster an in-group experience. 

Jane and I do it all the time.

We use language code that means something to us that would make absolutely no sense to anyone else. 

It fosters an in-group experience.

It enriches our us-ness. 

The thing that makes it work is that we have the shared experience and meaning-making that makes it intelligible to us. 

If all you want me to do is take your utterance at face-value, I’m good with that.

If you want something more, you’re going to have to spell it out more.