Sometimes I’ll suggest doing something (painting the kitchen, hanging some pictures, going to a play, etc.) and my husband will reply: “Good idea. Let’s think about that” or “Let’s not do that now, but we can put it on the agenda.” What he really means is “I don’t feel like doing that and I’m hoping that you’ll forget about it.”
I also find that I do the “Honey, will you take out the garbage?” thing when what I mean is “Please take the garbage out right now.” He’ll say that he’s going to do it but when he doesn’t do it immediately I wind up doing it. Sometimes I get really pissy when I do this. I freely admit that this is completely unfair. I should just learn how to phrase these things in the form of a command. I guess I just feel more comfortable asking someone to do something than telling them to do it. That is not an excuse but is just a fact.
Ack! I do the same thing! I’m amazed sometimes that the man puts up with me.
In our house, it’s, “Okay, if you don’t want X, you suggest something–and if you suggest it, yer cookin’ it.”
He usually warms up to X pretty quick. 
jarbabyj, Mr. Jar sounds just like Mr. Pug. I’ve also learned that the phrase “Why is this window open/closed?” does not mean he is interested in any reason; it means that my choice is wrong and he wants the window the OTHER way than how I left it. This goes for “Did you want the air conditioning on?”, “Did you want the ceiling fan on?”, etc., etc.
Another quirk: While in another room, he’ll call out “What’s this?”. I’ll explain to him for the 9,000,000th time that I cannot see what he’s talking about nor can I read his mind. And then he gets pissed because he has to identify the object he’s asking about!
Contrariwise, he complains that I am indirect, which sort of sums up the “Honey, would you like to do XXX?” subject already discussed above. In our case, I know that if I TELL him to do something, he’ll get pissed off because I’m trying to boss him around. Guys, is this why your wives beat around the bush?
Not many things are more infuriating than the “I don’t care” response.
Oh my gosh, are you secretly living my life? I do this all the time. I ask “Would you like take out the garbage?” and he would think about it as if I was actually asking him to evaluate his feelings about the garbage and then share them with me.
I also have to add “now” if I mean now, as in, pretty much right now. I think I am a fairly relaxed person, so if I say “oh, let’s bring in the lawn chairs” I suppose that could happen any time this afternoon, but if someone says “oh, could you get me a band-aid, the large size” you assume they mean now, or at least before they bleed out, right? Don’t you? Don’t you? Frankly, I believe any question that uses the word “band-aid” should not be answered with anything that sounds like “next commercial” but I guess not everyone thinks that.
Overall though, I am the picky high-strung person and he is the relaxed easy-going person, so he has to put up with a lot more than I do. I had to get over the “I don’t care.” When I would ask what restaurant he wanted to go to, and got “I don’t care” I would assume that was a hidden agenda sort of thing that was meant to initiate an intricate guessing game to discover where he wanted to go for dinner. Finally I learned that “I don’t care” is merely the green light for me to pick where I want to go.
He can also be vague. If we see a commercial for a movie he wants to see, he says “boy, that Chris Rock is hilarious,” while if we see a commercial for a movie I want to see, I say “let’s go see that on Saturday night, and I’ll call Jane and Phil to see if they want to go, and you should call the theater to get the showtimes.” This caused a lot of problems because I wouldn’t see any significance in the Chris Rock comment, and make plans to see a Jane Austin adaptation. He felt that I knew he wanted to see the Chris Rock movie and was deliberately pushing for another film, and he also thought I was being sneaky for not coming out and saying I didn’t want to see the Chris Rock movie.
Oh, this one is the worst … if he asks if I want to see some bloody horror type movie, instead of saying “I would rather let a goat poop on my freshly-washed hair than watch that” I will say something along the lines of “oh, no thank you, I don’t think I’m in the mood for that.” and he will then bring home the video ANYWAY, and say brightly “I thought you might be in the mood for it later!” I’m surprised my eyeballs aren’t permanently wedged back in their sockets from the eye rolling I’ve done over things like that.
When disciplining children Mrs. Kunilou says “I’ll handle this,” which means “Keep absolutely quiet, anything you say will be considered butting in, piling on the kid, or contradicting me.”
When discipling children I say “I’ll handle this,” which means “Of course you’ll feel free to butt in, pile on or contradict me at your earliest convenience.”
Then there is the priority conversation.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to do all of it.”
“What do you want me to do first?”
“It all needs to be done.”
“What do you want me to do most?”
“It all needs to be done.”
“What do you want me to do before I pack my clothes and leave you?”
There is only one phrase that counts: “Yes dear.”
Oh! I thought of some more!
When hubby says: “This place is a mess!”
What he really means is: “You and I are going to spend the entire weekend scrubbing the floors.”
When hubby says: “We really need to go grocery shopping.”
What he really means is: “You really need to go grocery shopping.”
When I say: “I really like that hat.” (Especially when said just before my birthday, Christmas, etc.)
What I really mean is: “Here’s what I’d like you to buy for me as a gift.” (Hubby never catches this.)
The question “Are you going to do X?” really means, “You’d better do X right now if you expect to live to see tomorrow’s sunrise!”. It must always be answered, “Of course, I was just about to do X”.
Oddly enough, my wife is usually the one to ask me, “Where is the X?”, to which my usual response is, without getting out of my chair, to glance casually around the room and point to the X. I have a theory about this, but since it involves dissing the type of people who sport tattoos and hang out in roach-infested bars drinking beer all night, I’ll let it slide.
Gotta disagree with Mr. AKAmame here. It is obvious from the posts here that to many (mostly women) “would you like to do X” does mean “please do X.” To me, saying “no” to the first phrasing is being just a tad concrete. To someone who thinks about it for a moment “would you like” is a request, just a very polite one.
When I ask my wife “Honey, where’s the X?”, she will never reply “I don’t know.” If she knows where it is, she will tell me. If she doesn’t, she will guess. Unfortunately, she doesn’t tell me which answer I’m getting, which results in exchanges like this:
Me: Honey, where’s the TV Guide?
Wife: Under the coffee table.
(I look under the coffee table. It’s not there.)
Me: No, it’s not.
Wife: Well, how am I supposed to know where it is?
It was obvious to her that she was just offering a helpful suggestion, and that I was a moron for wasting time actually looking there.
In the beginning of our relationship, the LO and I had a problem of the “Where do you want to go to eat/What do you want for dinner?” variety. The conversation would go like this:
Person 1 (could be either of us): What do you want to do for dinner? (TRANSLATION: I am hungry. Are you hungry?)
Person 2: Um. I don’t know. What do you want to do? (TRANSLATION: I am kind of hungry, and I am willing to eat. Did you have something specific in mind?)
P1: Um. I don’t care. What do you want to do? (TRANSLATION: I just want food. And anyway, I suggested the whole eating thing, so I think you should figure out what we eat.) (ALTERNATE TRANSLATION: I know what I want, but I don’t know if you also want it, and I’m afraid that if I suggest it you’ll eat whether you want it or not.) This step, obviously, is where serious problems could occur.
But, in a triumph for healthy marital communication, we have managed to change this conversation to:
P1: I’m hungry. Do you want to eat? (No translation necessary.)
P2: I could eat. Do you want choices, or do you want me to give you choices? (No translation necessary, whole problematic loop resolved.)
P1: You give me choices. OR I’ll give you choices. (Either way, no translation necessary.)
Choices are then provided. ‘Choices’ in our family means: Three alternatives. It is understood that choice-giver would be equally happy with any of the choices, and choice-maker can thus feel free to choose any of them with no soul-searching. Of course, sometimes the choice-giver does have a preference, but if she didn’t feel like coming out and stating it, she’s got to live with whichever choice the other party selects.
This has simplified matters to no end. It’s even gotten to the point where, after almost 8 years of Choices, we sometimes are able to circumvent the whole thing. (In such a case, P1 has a definite preference and is in fact willing to state it. P2 then has the option of agreeing, which she probably will, or disagreeing, which she knows she had better not do too often.)
Aren’t relationships interesting?
My wife will never ask me to do anything. She will simply make observations about the state of the world:
Wife: The grass is getting long.
Me: Yup, sure is.
Wife: The dishwasher is full.
Me: We’ve been using a lot of dishes, haven’t we?
It’s a battle of wills–she won’t ask, and I won’t volunteer.
For all those of you who have mentioned the fact that unless an item pole vaults out of the cupboard, pokes your partner in the eye and lands in their hand, they are unable to locate said item in its normal spot; and those whose partners are unable to notice that certain chores are past their “best-done-before” date (eg the garbage is piled high, the garbage is collected VERY early tomorrow morning, and the bin needs to go to the kerb NOW), I offer you the phrase “domestic blindness”. It comes in very useful round here when Mr Mame is unable to locate simple objects like the potato peeler (in the second drawer down, where else?), or stack of clean, folded clothes on his side of the bed that contain his missing jeans.
We actually think that, like colour blindness, domestic blindness may be gender-linked.
I am trying to train my roommate Hamish that expressions of sudden annoyance, such as “Dammit!” “Fuck!” and “SHITPISSFUCKMOTHERFUCKERANDTITS!” do not mean “Help!” The word for “Help!” is “Help!”.
If I don’t say “Help!” (or otherwise make sounds associated with imminent death), I don’t need help, and I’ll be more annoyed, rather than less, by your asking what it is. “SHITPISSFUCKMOTHERFUCKERANDTITS!” probably means that I have banged my shin or that I’m having difficulty with my contact lens again. It’s nothing to worry about.
Where else indeed! That is where all civilized people keep their potato peelers.
Sorry, I can’t buy that. I’m not a woman, but then again most of the people who’ve incorrectly guessed the meaning of this question aren’t either. Asking me if I would like to take the garbage out is, in no way that I can see, a direct request to transport refuse from the garbage can to the dumpster. More likely than not, “Would you like to take the garbage out?” would be met with “No, not really, would you?” “Would you like” is not “please”. “Please” is “please”.
If you want the garbage taken out, then just say, “Please take the garbage out.” It’s less syllables and there’s less codebreaking involved for the unlucky schlep who has to drag that smelly-ass bag out to the dumpster/curb and take the chance of getting doused with that “sauce” that always accumulates in the bottom and leaks out onto his shoes.
**Spritle[/s]'s post reminded me of our house, but in reverse.
If only Feynn could figure out that when I say “right now”, I don’t really mean “at some point, if you could get around to it, someday”. I’m pretty direct. I don’t vague things up. When I say something, that’s pretty much what I was aiming for.
How about, “Do you think you should have another beer?”
And it’s many variants such as, “Do you know how many you’ve had?” (When the real answer is, “How the hell would I know? I’m too shit-faced to count that high!”)
Only correct response, “I’m switching to soda/juice/water right now.”
Then there is the always fun, “How does this look on me?”
Coming into the room where you are watching a TV show, “Are you watching that?” Let’s see. My eyes are open, I’m facing an operating TV. Yeah, I guess that would qualify as watching, and you can presume the possibility that a synapse or two fired in choosing what show to have on. But no, I don’t mind if you switch the play off game to a re-run of some stupid sitcom.
Finally, how about, “Would you like to go shopping?” Frankly, my dear, I’d rather have my spleen gnawed out by rabid weasels. In reality tho, “Hang on, I’ll get my coat!”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the first time in 1401 posts that I screwed up the coding.
Try to hold back the applause.