Transparency...Vamos Windex!

On the pick-up soccer field at Stanton and Forsythe, Mexicans and Colombians, and one white kid, played a 6v6 match. The field is caged in by thirty-foot-tall fence, the turf is wonderfully green and soft, and as the grundgy grey Chinatown bustling rails on around the field, inside the cage is an oasis. The latinos llamaban al gringo algo que no era "gringo," y yo pense que era su nombre. Pero cuando empece a jugar yo, me llamaron lo mismo. They were calling us Windex. Why man? Because you're so clean and clear. Ok. !Vamos Windex!
Funny thing is that transparency is actually something that I genuinely struggle with, something that perhaps a lot of people struggle with. Many a sit-com script has included the girlfriend character yelling to her man, "I just don't know what you're thinking! You need to talk to me!" And often the boyfriend character doesn't understand where he's been unclear. He WAS clear, wasn't he?
I've often felt that way, because my natural reaction to conflict is to walk away. Isn't that what Sesame Street taught me to do? Don't fight, walk away. So when someone says something that I perceive to be wrong, or hurtful, or arrogant, or insensitive, the last thing I'm going to do is say something to them about it! Then I'd be the one starting the fight, Big Bird. No, I'll walk away before it even becomes a fight.

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[edited out for personal reasons]
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But she never knew she had insulted me! I had never said anything about any of her comments, and therefore she had no way of knowing that I even heard her! And my tiptoeing was both awkward and confusing, because it had no logical basis. And like we always do, she filled my silence with her worst fears. If the sitcom boyfriend is silent in response to an issue with the GF, she'll naturally fill that silence with an assumption that he no longer loves her, obviously has met someone else, and is about to break up with her.
It's awful. We need to communicate honestly in order to safeguard our relationships, in order to value our frienships. We need transparency. Vamos Big Bird!