Feeling Misunderstood on the Boards? Points to ponder

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I didn’t have a chance to post to techchick’s thread in the pit before it was closed. She’s not the only one who has expressed that they feel like they are misunderstood and/or misinterpreted in a thread (or multiple threads) by many people. I realize that’s not a direct quote–no offense to anyone, I hope, for paraphrasing. And I don’t mean to single techchick out–I repeat she’s not the only one. Her thread was just a timely reminder that I’ve been meaning to blather about this for a while.

First, a caveat: I know when you’ve made enemies, you can expect that they’ll read your posts uncharitably. But I don’t think that explains all the problems.

Anyway, I used to run into this all the time when I was a writing tutor. It’s hard to grasp this sometimes, but when you find many people aren’t reading your words right, there’s a good chance it’s the way you’re writing. Maybe it’s not that so many people are reading you wrong–maybe they’re reading you right, but you’re just expressing yourself in an intentional way. It might be YOU who are the problem–not the masses who keep “misreading” you. I don’t mean that in a condescending way–it’s just something that isn’t always obvious to the person doing the writing.

In grad school once I had a prof who complained that all 20 of us in a course had not fulfilled an assignment correctly. Finally someone said “If we all got it wrong, isn’t there a good possibility you didn’t tell us your expectations correctly?” It had never occurred to him, and he’s a brilliant guy. But that was exactly what happened.

Also, and this is from a much more personal perspective… a coupla years ago I was completely nuts after a breakup. I would send my ex long emails trying to explain some detail of our former relationship that he had wrong. I very carefully excised all emotional crap from the emails, and spent a lot of time making them as clear as I could, as rational as possible. One of my friends kept telling me I was not letting go, I was too involved. I thought she was full of it. I felt I was doing a wonderful job. Well, I saved a lot of the emails. Years later I re-read them. Holy christ, I see now I was out of my mind. It’s humiliating to see those emails now–even my careful, unemotional, measured words showed how off my rocker was. You could never, ever have convinced me of that when I was in the thick of it. I just didn’t have the judgement, while I was still so emotionally involved, to objectively evaluate my own actions, or my own words. And I consider myself a very rational person.

I’m not saying everyone has this problem–but I’d like to throw out there, for consideration, the fact that sometimes we aren’t writing what we think we are. It also helps to remember that new people are coming in all the time–and they may not have yet had a chance to read your best, funniest, most reasonable stuff. They can only take your current post at face value.

We now take you back to your more interesting threads.

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the key to being understood is being intersubjectively Transmissable in your posts.

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I’ve been pretty lucky in that since I stick mostly to MPSIMS, I don’t get misinterpreted much. I mean, how hard is it to misinterpret “PAAAAAAARTAAAAAAAY!” :smiley:

However, I know I’ve misinterpreted others, in other forums. Sometimes it’s the poster, sometimes it’s me. I tend to think it’s more me, because the ones I seem to misinterpret tend to be the posts by the really, really smart posters, who actually know what they’re talking about. I just have trouble getting the clue they’re giving.

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Ooohh, can I join in? I just love this subject (which doesn’t mean I am great at writing or getting my point across!) - communication just fascinates me as a subject.

Some books I really liked were those written by Deborah Tannen (“That’s Not What I Meant”, “You Just Don’t Understand”). She explores the issue of the spoken word not being understood, and how and why that happens. Conversational misunderstandings. I had to do a search at Amazon to get the titles right and I see that she has written a few more books that sound really interesting (“The Argument Culture” is one…).

I was doing a search of the archives last night, looking for an old thread, and I came across a summarization that I could relate to, but I don’t remember who posted it (or the thread). The person stated that the written word (and he/she was talking about emails & such, not literature) is the worst way of trying to communicate with another person.

Leaning across a small table, looking into someone’s eyes, seeing the beginnings of a smile form on their face, in the form of a slight upturn of eye or lips; feeling that you’re being understood, that you both get the same joke…it’s hard to get that same sense of understanding with everyone who reads your posts. I find it difficult to write in such a way that this happens with everyone who reads my posts.

You make some really good points Cranky, and I agree not only with what you’ve said, and the references that you’ve made, but I’ve also done the exact same breakup routine that you describe! What we go through trying/wanting to be understood! I struggle with this issue every single day.

Thanks for starting this thread!

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Cranky, are you my long-lost sister?

You are dead on.

Oh, god, sorry for this total hijack, but just reading the word “breakup emails” makes me squirm. I am so, so, so guilty of that, and I feel like I must perform a service to my fellow humans:

TO ANYONE READING THIS THREAD

If you have just broken up with someone (or more likely, been dumped), you may be tempted to write him/her one (or EGAD! MORE) long letters. These letters can be accusatory, funny, poignant, pleading, humiliating, sexy - all of the best and worst of you poured out for this person to see.

Write the letter, by all means, write the letter. Vent.

But for the love of all that is holy and secular, DO NOT SEND IT. If you never, ever, ever again listen to another word I say or take any of my advice, please believe me now. DO NOT SEND THAT LETTER OR EMAIL.

The other person, especially if it is a male, just will not get it. He will not change his mind, he will not decide to love you again, he will not come back. He will feel guilty and bad and creeped out. He will avoid you like the plague, belying his previous intention to “stay friends.” In extreme cases, your letter will be shared with close friends, usually with the words “I knew she wasn’t the girl for me, but was she always this psycho? Should I be changing my locks?” Above all, HE WILL NOT WRITE BACK, leaving you feeling even more rejected than before.

Months later, you will stumble across drafts of the letter or the email in your outbox months later, and you will squirm once again with the humiliation of it. This letter is never your best foot forward.

Take the letter, put it in the box where you put all the photos, stolent t-shirts, and that hideous Kay Jeweler’s diamante locket he gave you, and never look at it again.

[/hijack]

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Good points.

I didn’t realize until I started hanging around here that I don’t communicate nearly as well as I thought. It hasn’t resulted in any flaming arguments or misunderstandings, but sometimes, when I read something I wrote, I wonder what I was trying to say.

There are some exceptional writers and communicators here on the Dope, and I try to learn from them.

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As long as I realize what I am saying, I don’t worry too much about being misunderstood. When a poster like Bj0rn starts to understand me, that is when I will feel concern.

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HEY! I thought that looked NICE! Shaped like a horse shoe—I thought women are supposed to LIKE horses—and with “Good Luck” spelt out in rubies. Something that big costs a LOT of money, you know! And that picture of me at the fraternity kegger was my only copy.

I know I commit the crime of miscommunication daily. I use all the tricks: mis-timed humor, excessive sarcasm, not reading the other person’s post accurately, going into a thread with a chip on my shoulder, and too many commas.

And I agree with magda that the best email is the unsent email. The distance to the [SEND] button is too short to allow proper reflection.

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Dear God do I wish I could see this thread every time I hit the “submit” or “send” button!!
I tend to overreact or jump the gun and say things which IRL would be dismissed as the mildly sarcastic nothings they are. Instead, I end up alienating people and ruining things with almost no possibility of repair:(

So consider this my blanket apolgy to all the people I’ve offended/ will offend- I’m terribly sorry, I’m not really like that in person, and I’ll try to keep my feet out of my mouth in the future.

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…Also, girls, no matter how you feel, no matter how convinced you are that this is somehow a good idea…DON’T SCHEDULE A “TALK” WITH THE MAN. If you have to sit and explain all these feelings, no matter how eloquent, no matter how lengthy (and these do tend to prattle on for ever and ever and ever and ever…), HE WON’T GET IT.

I have a friend notorious for these anguished (and anguishing) talks. She once relayed to me how she thought she might go schedule A Talk with Person A, with whom she’d been having NCMOs (Non Commital Make outs)…she felt confused, wanted to know what he felt, should they pursue things, maybe the make outs should stop, blah blah blah. I told her, “Don’t make it a big long talk. Just say, ‘Our making out is kind of confusing me emotionally. I think we should stop.’” She looked at me like I had shot her cat. The idea of reducing such A Talk (which tended to be a minimum of an hour with her) to two sentences was shockingly offensive to her.

There is actually a proverb that applies here: The more the words, the less the meaning. And in the case of relationships, the less likely a) anything will change and b) more likely you’re going to come across as a complete kook.

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Ruffian, Magdalene: Does your advice apply equally to males tempted to write or to have a talk with the girlfriend? If so, why is it that one member of a couple with a lot of complicated things to say would necessarily be paired with someone who

?
I’m afraid I…uh…don’t get it.

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This is a great topic!

And I agree with all that has been said. But I would say something to Ruffian. While I wholeheartedly agree with your words.Some of us let that pendulum swing too far the other way.

The dialogue you had going on in your head that led up to those few terse words that summed it all up, well, no one else heard that. When those few terse, yet apropos words dropped they made a thunderous crash as a result.

This has gotten me into more trouble than I can describe!

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Cranky and Magdalene, you are the coolest.

I have read so many threads where this was the issue, but never said anything, because I was sure I would be misunderstood too.

Those breakup emails are the worst. Whenever you feel the temptation, go to http://www.breakupgirl.com - she curbed the urge for me.

And THE TALK, don’t get me started…you bastard, blah blah blah, I didn’t mean it that way, blah blah blah blah, will you still love me please, blah, please, blah, please, blah, blah??? Because blah blah, here are 37 reasons why I’m really not this blah blah pathetic and I know you find all of this whining to be such a massive turn-on, blah blah, how can you resist me?

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Good topic.

The way people express themselves on the board doesn’t always come across as it is intended to. I’d like to think of myself as getting better at this hence sometimes my words have been interpreted to have an underlying meaning that I did not intend.

Another interesting thought is how people convey themselves in different mediums. I’ve noticed many people come across quite differently on the boards than in chat, on the phone or IRL. Conversely, some come across much the same in these different mediums. I think this has more to do with personality though.

Back to the topic, I view life as a learning experience; and through our lessons, encounters and experiences we can better voice ourselves and more so convey what we intend to convey.

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Very nice post, Silo. I think that is a form of fighting ignorance: improving ourselves. I have learned so much from reading posts here.

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I don’t think I’ve been misunderstood on the boards much (at least I haven’t gotten any hate mail), but I have been misunderstood in email recently, mainly because I sent something that was a little sharper than it should have been. I have also been guilty of misunderstanding things on the board, but I think I have learned my lesson to nicely ask for clarification (via email if too personal to post) before getting my panties in a bunch over something.

[continuing magdalene’s hijack]
mag, you are so right about not sending email or letters to the ex. Earlier in the year I wrote a lot to a certain someone, but luckily I realized fairly early on that it was therapy for me, and not something he would ever see. I did send a couple emails, but only after I thought long and hard about it, and I’m glad in some ways that I did, because it helped me realize what a lost cause this guy is. As a dear friend of mine told me earlier in the year, “You cannot make idiot men realize what they are missing.” Of course, I was always able to accept this intellectually; accepting it emotionally is the hard part. She didn’t mean all men are idiots, she meant that this particilar man was an idiot, especially since he had my heart and knew exactly what he was throwing away.

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[QUOTE]
Leaning across a small table, looking into someone’s eyes, seeing the beginnings of a smile form on their face, in the form of a slight upturn of eye or lips; feeling that you’re being understood, that you both get the same joke…it’s hard to get that same sense of understanding with everyone who reads your posts. I find it difficult to write in such a way that this happens with everyone who reads my posts.Beautifully put, Lost.

Great thread, CrankyAsAnOldMan!

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Oops, that should read:

Beautifully put, Lost.

Great thread, CrankyAsAnOldMan!

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Wonderful thread, Cranky!
Hell’s bells, it so easy to miscommunicate in person, with all the visual clues; the written word invites personal interpretation that much more. I’m sure that’s the whole range of smilies was created. But–IMO–they don’t work well. They just become background clutter instead of emotional shorthand clues.

It’s soooo humbling to re-read stuff I was flat-out sure was clear and rational. Turns out what I meant wasn’t what I said at all. (And Deborah Tannen rocks!) Even previewing, etc. didn’t help, because I automatically read my intent and meaning into it. When asked for clarification, nope, what I intended really wasn’t there to be read.

Maybe that is the key: cutting slack and asking for more info. Mother 'o pearl, it’s easy enough to mislead without meaning to!

Veb

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For every post I actually submit, there’s another one I type out, read over, and abandon. I keep expecting to get an email from someone along the lines of, “I’m a native English speaker, Lux, but your shit reads like Joyce on 'shrooms.” Nothin’ so far; my fingers remain crossed.

Good, valuable thread, Cranky. Thanks.

If I may presume to answer, yes. Sweet Jesus, yes. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, drunken, 4-in-the-morning phone calls are right out.