By Boomrz Network
Let’s face it: human beings are complicated.
We like to think we are rational, reasonable creatures who communicate clearly, listen carefully, and always understand what the other person means.
Then someone says, “Fine.”
And suddenly we’re conducting a three-hour forensic investigation into the meaning of the word.
Welcome to being human.
Our Pecadilloes Make Us… Well, Us
We all have them — those little habits, quirks, preferences and peculiarities that make perfect sense to us but occasionally leave everyone else scratching their heads.
Some of us interrupt.
Some of us never interrupt and then spend the next six hours thinking about the brilliant thing we should have said.
Some people reply to messages immediately. Others see a message, mentally reply to it, forget to actually reply, and then wonder why their friend hasn’t spoken to them in three weeks.
And then there are those who say, “I’m not bothered.”
They are, in fact, bothered.
Very bothered.
Human interaction is a fascinating mixture of good intentions, misunderstandings, assumptions, emotions and the occasional completely unnecessary argument over where to eat.
The Great Communication Mystery
One of the biggest challenges in human relationships is that we don’t actually communicate with words alone.
There’s tone.
There’s body language.
There’s facial expression.
There’s timing.
There’s punctuation.
And apparently, there is now the terrifying world of emojis.
Consider the innocent message:
“Okay.”
Is that:
- Okay! 😊
- Okay.
- Okay…
- O-K-A-Y.
- Or the beginning of the end of the friendship?
Nobody knows.
And if you receive the message “K”, you may as well cancel your afternoon because you’re going to need time to interpret it.
We Bring Our Own Baggage
Another little human pecadillo is that we rarely enter a conversation as a completely blank slate.
We bring yesterday’s frustrations, last week’s argument, childhood experiences, assumptions, expectations and that one thing someone said in 2017 that we promised ourselves we were completely over.
We’re not.
We can hear the same sentence and interpret it completely differently because we’re each filtering it through our own experiences.
That’s why two people can walk away from the exact same conversation with two entirely different versions of what happened.
Neither person necessarily thinks they’re lying.
They’re simply experiencing the conversation from different seats.
The Curse of Being Right
Ah, yes.
Being right.
One of humanity’s favourite recreational activities.
Sometimes we don’t actually want to solve a disagreement. We want to win it.
We collect evidence.
We produce exhibits.
We remember things that happened six years ago with astonishing accuracy.
“On Tuesday, March 14th, at approximately 7:42 p.m., you said…”
At this point, congratulations: you’re no longer having a conversation. You’re conducting a trial.
Of course, being right doesn’t always make us happy.
Sometimes being kind, understanding or willing to say, “Maybe I got that wrong,” is far more valuable.
Unfortunately, our egos didn’t get that memo.
Why Can’t We Just Say What We Mean?
Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is that humans aren’t always very good at saying what they actually need.
Instead of:
“I’d really like some reassurance.”
We might say:
“Whatever.”
Instead of:
“That hurt my feelings.”
We might say:
“It’s fine.”
Instead of:
“I’d like you to spend some time with me.”
We might say:
“You clearly have more important things to do.”
And instead of admitting we don’t understand something, we sometimes nod thoughtfully and hope nobody asks a follow-up question.
We’ve all been there.
The Good News
For all our quirks, misunderstandings and occasional spectacular failures of communication, there’s something rather wonderful about being human.
We can learn.
We can apologise.
We can laugh at ourselves.
We can give someone the benefit of the doubt.
We can listen a little more carefully.
And sometimes, the simplest sentence in the world can repair an entire conversation:
“I’m sorry. I misunderstood you.”
Nobody gets human interaction right all the time.
The trick may not be to eliminate our pecadilloes, but to recognise them — preferably before they cause us to send a 900-word text message at 1:17 in the morning.
Your Turn
We’ve all experienced those wonderfully awkward, confusing, funny or frustrating moments when human interaction goes spectacularly sideways.
What’s yours?
Have you ever misunderstood someone’s message?
Had a conversation where two people clearly heard completely different things?
Been caught in an awkward social situation?
Or perhaps discovered one of your own personal pecadilloes the hard way?
Share your story in the Comments Box below.
You might discover you’re not as strange as you thought.
Then again… you might.
Either way, we’d love to hear from you.
— Boomrz Network
If you’d like, I can also turn this into a with a stronger opening hook, subheadings, and a catchy featured-image title.