We judge people’s response to us, based on our own expectations and imagined set of norms. A simple example of this is someone hugging us as a form of greeting: speaking for myself, that’s not a comfortable situation for me, I need space, am not a touchy-feely person and then there are aromas! Several of my friends and family are given to hugging as a form of greeting. To them, hugging is a simple and natural way of displaying affection. This of course, is a mere example, and in the larger picture, a hug or its absence doesn’t really mean much in casual encounters.
Let’s take it a step further; let’s look at people who use minimal words and actions to express themselves or respond. We go to such a person and ask them what they think of xyz, they tell us it’s ‘okay’; we end up thinking it’s only passable and rework the whole thing or even discard ‘xyz’ or it’s idea. The truth is, the minimalist means ‘wow’ when he says it’s ‘okay’ but our expectations and our own standards mislead us. The magnitude of the harm done in such miscommunication can vary and sooner or later either we or the minimalist, learns a lesson. Not to mention, there are also those who can be misunderstood because of their exuberant superlative adjectives or exceedingly polite words.
When we meet people and get to know them, we start thinking of them as friendly, nice, cool, unpleasant or even disgusting. Impressions are formed and judgments and opinions are made. We all have a clear idea of what exactly being friendly is. Anything less is categorised as cold and anything more is taken as too familiar.
There is a parable I read years ago, I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called or who wrote it. It’s about a girl with gorgeous golden hair who went to the top of a hill. There she found a single tree with the most fabulous blue flowers, and a solitary goat. Not being familiar with goats, the girl could only figure out that the animal was a herbivore; she wanted to befriend it. Now it so happens that the goat too had never seen a girl before, living as he did on the top of a remote hill and he too wanted to be friends with the beautiful creature with the bedazzling hair. The girl plucked a flower and gave it to the goat as a gesture of friendship; the goat being a goat, ate the flower up! The girl with the golden hair, walked away hurt and wondering why the goat decided to eat up her gift of friendship. The goat too spent forever wondering why the girl walked away and never became friends with him.
We find ourselves being the girl with the golden hair or the goat, in all spheres of life. In the workplace, we may have a colleague who is perpetually telling us what to do, his intention being the sharing of his knowledge. Unaware of this, we are likely to be offended or annoyed by the interference and lack of trust in our ability and this will surely lead to an unpleasant or unfriendly attitude towards the colleague, who in turn will take us to be hostile. The absence of candor harms most relationships or limits their growth, the bonds are never as strong as they can be unless we are honest and always speak up.
We meet someone and initially, it’s clear that we have taken to each other. Then, one of us reaches out at regular and frequent intervals while the other is more restrained. The probability of the one who is restrained thinking the new friend is coming on too strong and the other person feeling that the new friend doesn’t really want to be friends, is all too high.
I feel the greatest damage takes place when this sort of thing occurs in a supposedly romantic relationship. Take the case of a guy and a girl who knew each other for a while and had recently developed an interest in each other that went beyond friendship. He catches the flu and tells her about it; she tells him to have lots of chicken soup and go to the doctor if it persists. She is the sort who likes to be left alone when she is unwell and doesn’t even call the ‘could be boyfriend; or send him text messages as she doesn’t want to disturb him. As for the guy, he can’t believe he was falling for a girl who is so selfish that she doesn’t even care that he is unwell. Need I tell you how far the budding romance went?
These sorts of situations are inevitable and that is a pity. The good news is that there is a way around it. All we need to do is express ourselves a bit more, use the right tone and words. More importantly, we need to always bear in mind the possibility of others being, thinking and valuing things from a perspective that’s entirely different from ours. If the girl with the golden hair had told the goat that the flower was a symbol of friendship or the goat had asked – things would have ended on a much happier note.
