This all started on a Tumblr thread, but I find the insight fascinating.
"We are raised, the theory runs, in one of two cultures. In Ask culture, people grow up believing they can ask for anything – a favor, a pay rise– fully realizing the answer may be no. In Guess culture, by contrast, you avoid “putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes… A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.”
Neither’s “wrong”, but when an Asker meets a Guesser, unpleasantness results. An Asker won’t think it’s rude to request two weeks in your spare room, but a Guess culture person will hear it as presumptuous and resent the agony involved in saying no. Your boss, asking for a project to be finished early, may be an overdemanding boor – or just an Asker, who’s assuming you might decline. If you’re a Guesser, you’ll hear it as an expectation.
I have read that men grow up in an ask culture and women in a guess culture. Thus women get upset that men don’t pick up their signals and men get upset that women never ask for what they actually want.
I don’t really agree with that. Ask vs Guess, as with most things, is on a sliding scale. My ex-husband was even more of a Guesser than I am, and he’d get upset if anyone used the word “want” as in “I want to go out to dinner tonight.” He’d take it as very demanding.
But I see way more value in being an Asker than a Guesser (although I’m a Guesser). It’s pretty stupid to expect people to know what you want if you don’t tell them, and there should be no stigma in a simple “no” to someone’s request.
I’m having a HUGE problem with that right now in a DnD game I’m DMing. One player is an Asker. And he’s a whiny toddler asker - no isn’t no, its a starting point for negotiation or asking again. “Can I have a cookie?” “No, its close to dinner” “Can I have a cookie?” “No.” “Well, can I have half a cookie?” “No.” “Well, can I have an Oreo?” “No, that’s a cookie.”
Except the conversation is "No, you aren’t proficient and couldn’t use that plus I think that item is really unbalancing. Well can I respec my character “no, you can’t just respect your character to use a specific magic item besides - I still think that item is unbalancing.” And then “you say no to me more than anyone else” - yeah, no one else is ASKING. They are perhaps throwing out hints that they need +1 armor because they are getting hit too often, but they aren’t texting me between games with “can I have +3 armor at level 6.” Or I’m noticing that the team needs certain spells so throw in a spellbook containing that spell for the wizard because no one can make a tiny hut.
So an Asker who expects “no” and will just shrug and move on is a whole different beast than an Asker who nags or gets hurt with the no. Likewise, a Guesser who takes the responsibility of the work of guessing on themselves is a different beast than a Guesser who blames other people for not being able to read their minds.
Interesting, although I disagree with the opening sentence:
If I’ve understood it correctly, it describes people who seek to take advantage of others, the askers doing so overtly and the guessers covertly. I disagree with “one of two,” because some people don’t want to take advantage of anyone.
Most of the time. It’s an essential part of bargaining, and most men know that rule number one in the horndog’s handbook is to give it your best shot.
Yeah, the smoothest of operators leaves you wondering, “How’d he/she get me to do that?”
I don’t think it has anything to do with taking advantage of people, which has negative connotations. It has to do with wanting people to do something for you, as we all do. This can be wanting someone to help you on a project at work, wanting to borrow your neighbor’s shovel, or wanting to go together to get Thai food.
Here’s an example. You have a friend who lives in Boston. You want to visit Boston for a few days, and you know your friend has an extra bedroom. It would be very cheap and convenient for you to stay in that extra bedroom. But you don’t know how your friend would feel about that. Maybe she loves having visitors and gets a big kick out of showing off her hometown. Maybe she hates visitors and prefers peace and quiet. So what do you do?
An Asker would just ask, “Can I stay with you for a few days?” He would know (and accept) that the answer could be a yes or a no. Nothing to lose if the answer is no, but much to gain if the answer is yes.
A Guesser might comment on how nice Boston is this time of year and how he’s always wanted to visit. He’s hoping for an invitation, but the friend might not pick up on it, or maybe she did but isn’t responding because she doesn’t want him to visit, or maybe she thought he was just talking. So he makes another comment about something in Boston he’d really like to see and might come this summer. His friend makes a vague comment about how they should get together some time. Is that because she doesn’t really want to push him to stay, in case he doesn’t want to, or does she not really want him to stay and is only trying to be polite. In this case no one is clear about what they want and no one is likely to get what they want.
The up side of Ask is that people might see you as charmingly direct, uncomplicated. But people who are Askers have to have a tough hide because the down side is that you may be seen as insensitive, gauche, self-absorbed.
The up side of Guess is that people might see you as tactful and sensitive to nuance and hints. People who are Guessers better be good guessers because guessing wrong can be confusing to everyone (I thought you meant when you rolled your eyes at Bob that you wanted yellow flowers instead of red flowers, how was I to know what you meant was your bra was killing you and you could hardly wait to get home to take it off? And now it turns out you didn’t want any flowers!)
Basically, women are trained to be guessers. They are trained to be indirect, to anticipate what others wish, to apologize for wanting anything at all. Women are good at guessing what other women are trying to say, because they are trained to listen for others’ subtle hints. Men tend to be crappier at this. Men are trained to go after what they want, and take the consequences of a turn down. Each could really use a dose of the other gender’s skill set.
So now I’m picturing a roomful of women attending a training session where they’re learning to be Guessers.
Like other purported differences between the sexes, this may be true on average, but when it comes to individuals, it is not safe to assume that someone is an Asker just because he is male, or is a Guesser just because he is female. There are many other factors that may influence a person’s “training.” For example, some nations’ cultures value directness, others indirectness. And I suspect that someone (male or female) who grew up in a family of Askers is much more likely to be an Asker themselves than someone who grew up in a family of Guessers.
Well, I’m male and a “guesser” (which is a misnomer as far as I understand it). And I would say that the overwhelming majority of people I know are also guessers.
The “askers” are few and far between in, for example, my family. And they just annoy the daylights out of the rest of us. Which of course gets back around to why I generally know guessers. It’s the culture I was raised in. Plus I guess (!) we generally avoid hanging out with dissimilar people.
So it’s hard to estimate how many are askers just outside of my social horizon.
aka high-context vs low-context cultures: https://online.seu.edu/articles/high-and-low-context-cultures/
note how it correlates with economic development, the welfare state, secular-rational vs traditional values, self-expression vs survival values. I’ve noticed that people with anxiety are much more likely to be guessers/high-context. It can also result in them communicating indirectly, the other person not picking up on the indirect communication and then the guesser interpreting it in the least generous way possible. Guessers may not be as good at reading other people’s minds as they think and yet expect others to read their minds.
Different situations will fit different communication styles. For example, in the case of the boss who’s an asker, the power differential has to be taken into account when the boss presumes you can decline. There’s a meme about bosses who politely ask but are actually telling you what you’re gonna do: Yeah.... If you could work on Saturday and Sunday, that would be great - That Would Be Great (Office Space Bill Lumbergh) | Make a Meme
If there’s no significant power differential (or none that is likely to kick in) in favor of the asker, I’d expect communication to go towards asking as anxiety decreases and trust increases.
I’m pretty sure a significant bunch of people ask in some situations and guess in others. An asker becomes a guesser if there are consequences to saying no.
It doesn’t even necessarily involve someone wanting to do something for you - it can involve almost anything. Let’s say I want my husband to help more with the housework ( which is not really doing something for me, since after all, he lives here too). I can ask him to help more or to perform a particular chore like mopping the floor, or I can make comments about how much housework is left to be done or how tired I am and expect him to guess that I want help.
Huh? You don’t want people to go get dinner with you? Do you want any interaction at all with other humans, and do you want to have any influence at all on the nature of that interaction?
Because unless you’re a hermit or a doormat, there are times you need to influence the actions of other people, and doing so is totally benign.
I really don’t think this is as gendered as people are claiming. My male boss is an extreme guesser, and his almost-entirely female leadership team are all askers. I also think it’s extremely context-specific. In some contexts, where I know that it the culture, I am an asker. In others, where it is the opposite, I am a guesser. Maybe I don’t always get it right, of course, but it’s not an inflexible part of my approach.
Also, both approaches can be equally effective or equally infuriating. It really depends on whether they are appropriate to the situation and whether the person is skilled at applying them (my boss, for example, is a guesser with poor intuitions about other people’s desires and understanding. This works out poorly.
Oh, I see the misunderstanding. I read the last bit as “ask someone to get you Thai food.”
No, neither hermit nor doormat. I know who I am and what I want, and I choose my companions carefully because I’m not afraid of being alone. When I want something, I ask for it without reserve because I don’t make unreasonable requests. I think most mature people do the same.
Sounds like a half-baked theory to me. If you get something out of it, more power to you.
I definitely agree with both of these assertions.
Let’s say you’re making dinner for me, and I’d like a second helping. The Ask approach would be to just say “Could I have some more meatloaf?” The Guess approach would be to say something like “That meatloaf was really good” and hope you offer me some more.
I would probably take the Ask approach IF…
I know you really well (like, if you’re my mom or my SO or something), or
You’ve already said something like “There’s plenty more!” or
Other people at the table have already asked for seconds and been met with favorable responses.
Otherwise, I’d take the second approach. I don’t want to put either you or me in an awkward situation, or look like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel. Maybe there isn’t any more. Maybe there’s just a little left, so I could have a second helping but then there wouldn’t be enough left for anybody else to have more. Maybe you were saving the rest for someone else to have later. Maybe you were about to serve dessert, and I’d be delaying that by getting seconds on meatloaf.
As I understand it, an Asker wouldn’t worry about any of those things. They’d just ask, and leave it up to you to say No. Which works fine for some people, but makes me uncomfortable.