Mitigated Speech

Awa over at GunFree Zone had an interesting piece on communication.

It comes about when somebody uses language that is designed to not offend, rather than to say things clearly.

Awa

Oh man, have I seen this.

Today, my wife got a long text message from her friend. My wife was accused of being a horrible person, a horrible friend, a horrible mother. She was accused of not caring because she hadn’t brought dinners over. That she hadn’t stopped in.

It was mitigated speech that did this.

My wife was sending texts. Her friend wasn’t responding. In her friends “mitigation codebook,” it said, “not answering a series of text messages is a request for a visit.” Chapter IX, Section A, subsection g, paragraph 17. Right?

My wife didn’t have the same codebook, her codebook said, “not answering a text is an indication of being busy.”

Awa

There must be a better term to describe this when it’s between man and woman, or wife and husband. Herself the Petitioner did this constantly. Somehow or another I was supposed to infer what was going on. Between sexes, there can also be a disqualifier complication, to wit:

“Why did you sleep in the other room last night?” – My legs bothered me, I didn’t want to wake you up. After complaining endlessly about the litter box in the hall bathroom – “Why don’t you use the master?” – I don’t want to wake you up. What I inferred with that was she wanted the cat to go away. I don’t know how many times I said to make it go away. I had no problem with that. But after being the one to return mis-adopted pets back from whence they came for thirty years, I wasn’t going to do it. After she was direct about it, I was direct back. Take the cat yourself.

It didn’t help.

I have no such issues with the new woman. Not having grown up in our idiotic culture, she knows that she needs to speak directly when she wants something or wants to know something. She’s asked me many pointed questions, and I’ve given many honest answers.

BTW I’m not pinning it all on Herself the Petitioner. Communication, by far, wasn’t our only issue, just one of the bigger ones. But this understanding this kind of miscommunication was what I meant when I said it would have been easy to fix most of our issues.

As a man, you need to know how this works, step outside what’s being said, ponder what’s really going on, and when you figure it out, ask.

The new woman has benefited mightily from this relatively new-found knowledge.

On some level, that’s sad. Innit?

I’m headed to Reynosa with her today. That’ll be fun.

She wants to show me her hometown.

(Inferred: Wants the twin sister to size me up head to tail)