The problem with communicating one’s needs and wants to another person, is that some needs and wants can only be fulfilled if one does not ask for them.

I’m talking about words, mostly. Words we wish that someone would say, but that can only be meaningful if they originate in the other person’s heart.

If I wish that you would apologize to me for something you’ve done… If I wish you’d say “I love you” more… if I wish you’d give me more compliments, or thank me more often when I do things for you– I mean, sure, I can ask you to say those words. But if I do, then they won’t mean anything when you say them.

Or at least– it’ll take a lot more than just saying them, to convince me they mean anything more than “you asked me to say these words, so I am saying them because that’ll satisfy you.”

Does your apology mean “I understand why you were hurt by what I did, and I sincerely regret it and I want to make amends?” Or does it mean “you asked for an apology so here’s an apology”?

Do your compliments really mean that you like my outfit, my cookies, the art project I’m working on? Does your “thank you” mean you’re truly grateful? Or do they just mean “if I make these sounds more often, they will be like coins in the vending machine that dispenses your approval”?

Is your “I love you” an expression of love, or just a programmed output for the input “please say you love me”?

If I ask for an increase in gestures like this, and you give me that increase, I do know that it means you want me to be happy– that’s some little comfort at least. But all those gestures have meanings– or are supposed to have meanings– beyond just “that you want me to be happy.”

And if I asked for the words, how can I know if those meanings are there or not?

What will you have to do– in what possible ways, with what original sincerity, can you innovate on your answers to my plea– to overcome the fundament that underlies all of it in my mind? The base certainty that– if the meanings of those words were real, if you ever really felt the emotions that ought to be behind them– then you would have been saying them from the start, without having to be asked?

It can probably be done, but I can’t tell you how. Because even if I knew, it still only works if you figure it out yourself. And, see, then we’re back to square one.