There are fast talkers and slow talkers. Fast walkers and slow walkers. Some people seem to pack way more life into a given day or week. It may just look like they’re getting a lot done, or it may look like they’re in a kind of constant hurry. There’s a spectrum of speeds that we all operate in. Sometimes we move slowly, sometimes fast. And though that varies, we all tend toward our own personal pace.
For any two people in relationship, most likely those paces will be different. If the difference is striking, awareness may be there, but most often it goes unnoticed. And it is surprising how this innocent difference in the way we filter our experience can cause difficulties.
A very compatible couple I knew ran into some challenges when some intense family and work stress overwhelmed the man. In general, they did very well with it, but talking with them, I could tell that when dealing with this particular issue, they spoke, thought, and reacted at very different speeds. The emotional stress slowed him way down. His partner happened to be a very quick, intelligent and highly verbal person who, with a sense of urgency to help, thought and spoke even faster than usual.
This mismatch in pace had an innocent, but confusing impact on their ability to talk in this important time. He struggled to find words to relate what was happening, sometimes getting emotional. And seeing his pain, her mind would race to possible things that might help, offering up the best ones she could think of as quickly as possible in hopes to shorten his distress. But you could see that the rapidity with which these ideas came to him added to his overwhelm and slowed him down even further. She would then get a little hurt and confused as to why her good efforts weren’t better received. But when she was able to slow down to his pace, her care, attention, and ideas slid right into place.
The key here is flexibility. She was able to change her pace quite significantly, which had a big impact on her ability to connect to a dear one in distress. There’s no “right” pace, but for any given situation, one tempo may be more useful than another.