As a relationship expert (www.ChoiceRelationships.com), I would like to add that couples need to know that conflicts are bound to happen. But here’s the good news: there are skills they can learn so that they can handle them better. When they do, their partnerships fare much better. I offer a free teleseminar, “The 7 Tools to Manage Conflict Communication in Your Relationship.” To hear it, go to: http://choicerelationships.com....._resources.

I didn’t think you were characterizing sensitive people as grumpy.

There are grumpy people, God knows, I believe I know that.

In fact, it goes directly to your Living with Dying post in my own life.

When I was a little girl, I lived with people much much older than me and diagnosed with terminal stuff, or stuff that had less treatment/knowledge available about the diagnosis’.

More recently in my life, I cared for three more elderly relatives. Grumpy for one of them was not even a close description and he was healthy for his age until 93. Actually he was THE most challenging of the three.

Which of course has everything to do with me comparing my excitable reactions to squeaky wheel grumpy.

It unfortunately seems to appear as a fine line issue to those who observe from the sidelines, and think “there she goes again”.

And on a last note, there are more times than not I’m having the same conversation with myself. Stop, slow down, don’t get excited, read at face value, your blood pressure matters!

I appreciate even keel, I especially appreciate when I can do it.

I try to keep in mind that people can have differing reactions to what i write. Also that I am dealing with matters that can be quite personal. Blogging is strange – more strange than print perhaps – we have personal reactions to something that looks quite impersonal – black squiggles on white. With blogging where interaction is fairly easy this is particularly the case I think. In some ways blogging is a mass medium – the closest analogy I can think of is talk-back radio (kind of one-on-one and kind of a mass audience too).

I guess the way forward for us is that you can send me an email or we can discuss your reactions to the posts in the comments. This goes someway to being one on one.

I had a little different reaction to this article. I think I am a highly sensitive person. My reactions often reflective of my sensitivity. I used to think I too was grumpy, or the squeaky wheel demanding my grease. And I’m not totally ruling that out as someting I may have done. Or that it appeared outwardly to others that’s how I was getting my say.

As a sensitive person, I often am wary of people who respond too passively. I wonder how much they mean or don’t with this rather, cool and calm reaction to something I’ve seen as ‘more important’, ‘more meaningful’. It is then a matter of trust in the person I reacted to, how well I might or might not know them.

I think the combinations of this dynamic of grumpy people vs. not grumpy people is as varied as there are combinations of people interacting in a situation. So less mass ‘solutions’ to be applied here. Rather one on one focus.

I suppose if I use the example of you and I, I’ve been triggered many times by what you’ve said. Two of your recent posts, the two posts about Easter and Living with Dying, struck me at levels that even I haven’t been able to decipher yet.

It seems, you stated your case and position very calmly and I was at the other end, trying to manage triggers.

I don’t say this to diminish, but this is a blog post. And has nothing to do with either of us personally, nor in relationship to one another. Or does it? We weren’t even in proximity to one another nor having a personal discussion. Even so, it was not without effect on my thoughts/reactions half way around the world and we’ve never even formally met!

I guess what I can deduce by this is, there are calm folks like you. There are more effected folks like me. Seems if you and I interact, we have to figure that out between us, so maybe micromanaging, rather than broader choices as solution.

I’m no expert but I think one key to a lasting relationship is finding someone who is on the same journey or path as you are. Sharing common goals or a common cause strengthens bonds between friends, family and significant others and lets us overlook the minor stuff.

Love the wallaby.

I think there are things that can be done to alter the environment – and people can adapt very rapidly to their environment. This is everything from running meetings differently to getting people together informally – a famous example is the company announcing the coffee was ready to encourage people from different departments to meet and share ideas (I think it was Hewlett-Packard, but I’m not sure). The example of the ‘person at the top’ can also be influential.

You’ve raised a fascinating question, thanks.

At home, yes, I think it’s necessary for people to sit down and talk about how they plan to get along together and make an agreement to act like civilized adults – but in the workplace, where we start out with the assumption (right or wrong) of being rational grown-ups with a common purpose, that kind of conversation would be inappropriate in most cases.

Brings it down to individual responsibility for our own behaviour, doesn’t it? And back to square one… if the squeaky wheel gets the grease, where’s his motivation to squeak less loudly?