You Don’t Say What You Mean

Human beings are so fucking smart. We invented fire, perfected hunting, crafted tools, discovered the solar system, and invented language. Very long ago, someone wrote a few symbols on rocks and someone else deciphered what those symbols meant. It took ages, but we developed language, and perfected the art of communication.

Or did we? Did we really perfect the art of communication?

Picture this:

Joe comes home from work exhausted, frustrated, and tired of the relentlessness of it all. His only desire is to sink into his couch and while the evening away watching TV. He kisses Jane hello and saunters to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. Immediately, he is greeted by a sink full of dirty dishes which pisses him even more.

So, he goes back to the living room and stares daggers at Jane who’s laughing at something on her phone. She barely notices him until he, exasperated, shouts:

“Will I never come home to a clean house?”

Taken aback, she takes a second to compose herself, then retorts:

“Do you think I don’t also work?”

Thus, the first argument of the night enters the house.

Notice that both Joe and Jane never said what they meant. Upon seeing the dirty dishes, Joe probably thought:

“Every time I come home, I find dirty dishes. I hate dirty dishes, and I wonder what’s wrong. She should have done them by now, no? Lemme go ask her.”

But that’s not what he says to her. Not by a mile. Instead, he utters the cryptically accusatory question, “Will I never come home to a clean house?”

Jane hears the question, and her mind rushes to fill in the blanks, to answer the accusation that was yet to be levelled.

She thinks:

“My day has been filled with so much work and frustration. I just sat down for a second to take the load off, and you immediately accuse me of laziness. How dare you? I also need you to help me around the house. Maybe we can work out a way to help each other. Also, my feet hurt”.

But, like him, she says none of that. Instead, she retorts, “Do you think I don’t also work?”

Words are exchanged, but meanings remain hidden.

In 1990, Elizabeth Newton, a Stanford University graduate student, demonstrated a phenomenon known as the curse of knowledge using a simple experiment.

She had a group of subjects tap on a desk using their finger the rhythm of a popular song and another group tried to name the melodies. Those who tapped (and you can try it yourself) would hear it as clearly as if they were listening to the song itself. But those who didn’t found it incredibly difficult to recognize the melodies. Even more interestingly, the tappers thought that the listeners would very easily recognize the melodies they were tapping, and were therefore flabbergasted as to why the listeners struggled.

Because they heard the songs so clearly in their minds, they thought it insane that the listeners could not identify it. Perhaps they might have thought the listeners stupid or, worse, uncultured.

Little did they know that they were the problem. They had the curse of knowledge.

Similarly, when we speak, we think we do so clearly and efficiently. We understand ourselves so deeply and uniquely that we are flabbergasted when others don’t. We fail to realize that we might be speaking cryptically, and that those who hear us don’t already possess the knowledge we have.

They don’t hear our thought process and they don’t understand exactly what we mean because we don’t say it.

So, the husband thinks his question is perfectly valid and simple, and he is shocked and appalled that his ‘stupid wife’ can never seem to understand him. Similarly, the wife thinks her response witty and clear enough but apparently not to his ‘dumb, selfish husband’ who only thinks of himself.

Yet, if either (or both) of them says exactly what they’re thinking, then the conflict disappears. The husband would share his concern and the wife hers. The point would then become, “How do we ensure that the dishes are clean while balancing each other’s load?” rather than “Why does he/she never understand me?”

See, human beings are so fucking smart. We invented language which should have perfected the art of communication. But we are also very dumb. We fail to understand that communication is not merely the exchange of words/symbols; it is the exchange of meaning.

So, we tend to rely on others having psychic abilities to understand us, and when they don’t, we blame them and think them stupid or selfish.

Yet, it is we who are stupid and selfish. It is we who fail to notice the disconnect between our thoughts and our words.

When it pertains to communication, it is not the intention that counts; it is the actual message.

That’s the curse of communication, and it is so prevalent and comical. Many conflicts arise out of our failure to say what we think (and our belief that we said what we thought). If only we can get better at communicating our true intentions and thoughts, then we will fall into fewer traps and conflicts.

So, the next time, you get yourself embroiled in an argument with a loved one, take a step back and listen to your words. Contrast them with the meaning and intention behind them and see if you can reconcile the two.

But be careful. The side effects include having relationships that are too strong or becoming too good of a speaker or writer.

And who amongst us wants that?