There’s something about communication…

a disorder spectrum.

Modern communication is not just broken; it is softly dishonest. A dishonesty that silently lives in the way we dilute our intent and remove ourselves from responsibility. And I think that softness is what creates the illusion of understanding. Because in reality, we struggle not just because we speak differently, but because we have wrong understandings of what communication is. One person is speaking to be heard, and the other is listening only to respond. We’ve allowed communication to become something one-sided—existing to soothe the bellies of our egoistic demons.

Sometimes we’re unaware. Sometimes we know exactly what we’re doing, but we do it anyway.

Healthy communication:

• One speaks to be understood.

• The other listens to understand.

• Both roles are fluid, not fixed.

• Response is secondary to comprehension.

This is a trade.

There are many layers to communication, but at its core, it is an exchange. A deliberate one. You trade your ear for someone’s words and theirs for yours. Your heart for theirs and theirs for yours, if only for a moment. And, when depth demands it, you trade lips for lips. Because that’s the point of communication: depth.

But these days, something is off.

People offer their presence without attention. They offer their ears without response, and words literally fall on deaf ears. Conversations feel like transactions that were never meant to be completed. Half-sentences. Half-listening. Half-caring.

We are not there, and even when we are, we remain unavailable. Talmbout:

Friend 1: “How are you doing?”

Response: “I’m doing fine.”

You’re doing fine? What does that even mean?

What happened to:

“I’ve been tired lately, I don’t think I’m sleeping well.”

“I saw a puppy on my way to work; poor thing was looking for its mummy.”

Are we just genuinely tired or is there something else at play?

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Sometime last week, I reprimanded a friend for poor communication. He was learning a habit of leaving my messages unread while being visibly online. It felt careless. Dismissive, even. So I told him what I thought it reflected—lack of regard, an unwillingness to meet me halfway in something as simple as a conversation.

He responded: “...It gets busy. I simply forget. I don’t know how to do it anymore, so I’ve given up.”

It sounded like an excuse, but at least I’d told him. He said he’d do better.

That same week, an acquaintance replied to a post I made on WhatsApp and accused me of “absconding.” It wasn’t serious, or at least I didn’t think it was. So I brushed it off and told him he was wrong.

“I’ve just been busy with exams,” I said.

But the moment I sent the text, something in me paused because I realized: I had just done the exact same thing I condemned. An easy explanation. A socially acceptable cover. A way to avoid saying what I actually meant, which was far less polished and far more honest: I did not prioritize responding. And suddenly, my friend’s words didn’t sound as hollow.

“I’m busy.”

“I forgot.”

“I don’t know how to do it anymore.”

Turns out we’re all sinners.

Sometimes, those things are true. Life is demanding. People are overwhelmed. Not every silence is malicious and some people are actually neck deep in exams, lol. But if we’re honest, truly honest, “I’m busy” is often just a softer way of saying this is not important enough to me right now. And because that truth is uncomfortable, we dress it up. We make it sound accidental. Unintentional. Temporary. Because it is easier to be perceived as overwhelmed than to be known as unwilling.

However, the line between being overwhelmed/protective of your peace and being irresponsible is thin and blurry.

If communication is a trade—a literal exchange of your life force for someone else’s—then you cannot afford to be a philanthropist with everyone, lest you waste your time and risk losing cubits of your IQ (I saw a video of a lady arguing with someone who was saying that Tinubu deserves a second chance, LOL).

Not everyone deserves a seat at your table just like you don’t at theirs. It may sound harsh, but it is necessary and if you believe otherwise then you stretch yourself thin. For this, we have a list of who gets access to us; a scale of preference, like in economics. Who we respond to quickly. Who we take our time with. Who we ignore entirely. And that, in itself, is not the problem.

The problem is the dishonesty we wrap around those choices. Instead of owning our boundaries, we hide behind excuses. It is a small cowardice, but a cowardice nonetheless. Because honesty, even in something as simple as communication, requires a certain kind of courage.

Communication is not just about speaking or responding. It is about presence, intention and a willingness to meet someone, however briefly, in a shared space of understanding and if we cannot offer that, the least we can do is be honest about it.

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Do you think we can ever truly fix the soft dishonesty of modern communication?