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thebibliosphere:margsmargs:thebibliosphere:lacommunarde:thebibliosphere:jenoh77:thebibliosphere:instantbanana:my-mental-pile:itsme98z:YES. Make things clearer and more specific Especially the first one! I have a really hard time knowing if somebody actually wants me to do something unless they are specific about the task and direct it towards me completely. This is some adhd/autism solidarity Mood™️Passive vs direct communication.Some people are capable of having entire conversations in passive tone through subtext. I’m one of them (it’s not healthy), but this completely falls apart when you encounter someone only used to dealing with direct communication.It’s one of the things ETD and I actually struggle with. I was conditioned never to make direct statements or requests of someone, because it was considered “rude”. The end result of this of course is that people don’t actually understand what you’re saying, and then spend a good portion of their lives feeling upset and hurt that no one seems to deem you worthy enough to listen to, and you just end up wiping the table clean yourself in frustration because why fucking bother to ask, no one listens.Except you didn’t ask, did you. You made a statement. And some people won’t view that statement as anything other than a passing comment about the table needing to be cleaned.(You could argue that on seeing the table needs cleaned, it should be done anyway, but that’s another topic for discussion.)Life gets so much easier when you stop speaking in subtext, and actually say what you mean, both for those who require direct communication to navigate the rollercoaster that is social schema, but also for yourself in general.@thebibliosphere For people who would struggle to move to a direct form of speech in one go, what do you think about a halfway house e.g. “That table needs to be cleared when you have a minute please.”Oh it’s absolutely not something you can adjust to in one fell swoop. This is something I’ve been working on for years, but still slip into, particularly if I’m not certain of the people I’m talking to.With that more directish kind of request, you still have to account for the fact that the person might think “it’s not an issue right at this second, so I’ll get to it in a while” rather than dealing with it as a direct request that needs dealt with sooner if not immediately. If you’re fine with that, cool, but also don’t be surprised if you still get annoyed if the person doesn’t react immediately or how you want/expect them to. They’re not intentionally hurting/ignoring you (generally speaking, there is always an exception to any situation), though it’s easy to feel that way when you have a life time of passive communication and passive aggression to process.But whatever you can do to make your meaning more direct and better understood is helpful and beneficial, and something you can keep working on, both for your benefit and the benefit of others :)The one thing I object to: But what about people who are saying the first one to see if anybody takes them up on the offer? It could be you; it could be your father or brother. But if none of you do the thing, it will be me, who went shopping for the ingredients, and who cooked the thing, and who would really like somebody to roll for initiative, but who is not about to assign the task to anybody, because I’m not your manager and this is not a job. But it would be nice if I didn’t have to and if someone could offer. I might even help, but offering to do a good thing goes a long way towards lowering household labor on that one person who ends up doing most of it.That gets into the really murky depths of emotional labor and social conditioning/expectation, which also stems, largely in part from teaching a large portion of the population to communicate passively.For example, the women in my family all speak passively, and spend a large portion of time being angry that they are either ignored, or frustrated that they even have to be direct and tell people to do things at all, because why should they be the Only ones doing all the upkeep of a house which everyone resides in.(Etd and I clash on this sometimes. Things which drive me insane don’t bother him, but he gets upset when I snap and try to do too much at once and eventually I throw in the rag (literally or otherwise) and complain that well if maybe he thought to do something in advance I wouldn’t have to do xyz and drive him crazy with zyx.)Which is a worthy topic, but not what this post itself is trying to address. And I’d rather not derail from that :)I don’t know if it helps, but speaking directly has gotten easier in my household once we agreed that “no I can’t right now” (without having to justify it) is an acceptable answer. Also helps to explicitly say that like “please clean the table? it would help me but it’s okay if you can’t right now, I can do it/one of us can do it later/etc.”I know it makes it more complicated. But for me part of the problem with direct asks is there’s no socially acceptable way to say a direct no (and sometimes a direct no sounds hurtful), so we had to work on those at the same time.Regardless, thank you for this list of suggestions.Direct communication also requires being able to listen, and say “no” to things, and having that be understood as a perfectly reasonable response :)If I say “can you please do this?” And my partner replies with “no, I can’t right now” it’s far more preferable than a muttered “I’ll get to it” or being ignored, or having it be done with a passive aggressive grudge.Healthy communication requires active participation on all levels, which also includes being willing to listen. (Which is not what the original post is about, just to clarify. I’m talking in more broader and general terms at this point.)If I am dealing with strangers or people I perhaps don’t know that well, (and in turn that means they dont know me that well) and I am unable to do things when asked, I am aware that they may take my refusal as a passive “I could do this but I don’t like you so I won’t” (which is what a lot of people conditioned by passive communication feel) and misread my meaning as rude or unhelpful, so I’ve started doing things like “no, sorry I can’t do x that week, but we could reschedule for y?” Or “no, I can’t do that right now, my pain is making it hard to stand/I can’t use my hands too well/I’m feeling unwell”.It takes more effort on my part, and some people might argue I dont have to divulge that level of info, but I find it does help, and it also invites back open and direct conversation in turn. If people choose to be passive aggressive about that? That’s on them. (A way to deal with that kind of behavior is to say “I’m not willing to deal with that tone, if you can’t say it simply, come back to me when you can”. People still get angry over it, and they might throw a strop, but a large part of passive communication and passive aggression comes from not knowing how to directly state something, so allowing and inviting for that clarification, can help immeasurably. Also be willing to give them time to think about what exactly it is they’re struggling with. Communication is hard.)It’s not easy, but it’s a skill worth developing in the long run, as, I keep noting, for everyone involved.Out of curiosity, would you also say that culture plays a role in this? Here’s why I ask: I would like to move to the UK eventually. In researching culture differences, one thing I discovered was that the American direct way of speaking comes across as rude to British sensibilities. Even directly confronting someone who is legitimately being rude is rude–you’re supposed to find a way to passively hint that their behaviour is out of line, instead of saying so.I strongly prefer direct communication, and often don’t pick up on implied requests. Of all the culture differences I’ve discovered, I suspect this will be the hardest to adjust to. If I ever get to move, that is. -- source link
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