first as a general statement--i don't think that you suck at the communication thing when you are communicating. i think that you and i have always had good clear conversations and emerged from them with a feeling of closeness--of the communication having brought us closer together? what you tend not to do is respond in the first place--maybe out of this very fear? i think of you as an introvert where communicating drains you so that you tend not to do it, rather than an inept communicator once you get going. and i've never been sure how much of the draining was due to us tending to communicate about things that are very emotionally fraught--we don't have many "hey, how's it going?" interactions to use as a baseline.

to address how you communicate with your flist--i think that the majority of my flist doesn't do those little "thanks for the hugs" sorts of responses so i never noticed that you don't. if someone says something of substance, i really try to get back to respond, but if i say something and someone leaves me a hug--i really appreciate those hugs and sometimes i'll do a group thank you, but i usually don't do an individual response to each comment like that unless i am just overflowing with the need to do so, somehow, and that's something that comes from me, not from feeling that it is required.