Talking with someone

I would do well to remember that when I talk with a person, they are not looking at the me that I know as me, but instead they are experiencing their fantasy of who and what I am and what I seem to be saying to them. This talk they hear has to fit in the context of the situation as they perceive it, which includes their fantasy of who/what/why/how of me as originator of the talking. If what I say is too far from the center of what they think I could be saying in the circumstances and other context ongoing, either they will shift it into something that seems fitting to them, or it will completely escape them as to what I just said.

Interpretation is ever ongoing in conversation, as in other kinds of experiences, becoming their best guess as to "truth." Another person, seeing it through different eyes, might interpret it all quite differently in part or completely, based on their fantasy of what the relevant context is, and thus discover quite a different best-guess "truth" for themself.

This is also happening in myself at the same time, of course. But, seeing out of different eyes than they do.

Probably people tend to use their own self as a model for creating the fantasy of the other person. Their Jungian "shadow self" can easily be part of this context fantasy, thus providing all sides but also thus assigning valence depending on that side choosing. If all people were identical, then they would interpret the same but they would have little to say to each other, already knowing it all themselves. But if people were all extremely different from each other, they would not have any idea what the other people were saying. In the real world, we are all somewhere in between these two extremes, producing a mix.

What this boils down to, as a reminder to myself, is to remember that the person I am talking with does not see me nor hear me, but instead are experiencing their fantasy of my voice and appearance. There may be ways to communicate through their fantasy so as to communicate what I intend to communicate, and that is worth seeking. Otherwise, we just have two fantasies making noises fulfilling each other's expectations of their own worlds, to some extent, and the rest just bounces off.

On reflection about this, I now realize that people do this deliberate preparation for other's fantasies a lot. Women putting on makeup, for example. Style in attire another. Men displaying their alpha-male-implying musculature; females advertising how nice it would be to cuddle with them, by looks, actions, energy radiated out to the folks around. Even a fisherman's fly lure on the fishhook is there to convey a fantasy to fish that might be in the area looking for a meal. Soldiers are conditioned to physically assault monsters and the "enemy people" have "monster" image painted over themselves in the soldier's fantasy world so they can deliberately cause harm to others that otherwise they would be ignoring or being friendly with, maybe conducting business; but with "monster" painted over the eyes of the soldier, soldier attacks the "monster" in his mind while physically assaulting the person the image has been painted on in the soldier's fantasy. Possibly all assaultiveness involves this kind of fantasy-experience while acting on physical level. All these are things deliberately contrived to provide a fake message to provide input to others' fantasy generator, so as to manipulate their physical actions.

So this looks like it gets kind of messy. My original intention was of a lesser goal. Is there a clean version of the communication process?