Hippo, birdie, two ewes...

... to chipuni!!! Have a great one!!

Two sets of questions

Two sets of questions for you, inspired by my post on social answers and calibration. The first set doesn't have "right answers", it's just a kind of survey.

1. Do you consider a "social answer" a form of dishonesty (i.e., a lie), or a convenient shorthand based on a social convention that certain socially-incompetent geeks like me never learned to understand?
2. Do you give "social answers" yourself?
3. If so, is there usually a subtext, and do you expect the listener to understand it?

I'll give mine: 1: shorthand; 2: only rarely except with strangers; 3: not a conscious one/no.

The second set is stuff I don't have a clue about. I'm asking because I very much want -- and need -- to learn how to get better at interacting with people.

1. Is it usually safe to ignore the subtext, or is it usually something very important that will cause problems if I miss it?
2. Is it socially acceptable to probe for further details?
3. If that's situational, is there any way to tell when it's acceptable?
4. Can a 61-year-old geek learn this arcane skill, and if so, how?

I don't have answers for those, obviously.

River: Why I asked

Public Service Announcement #3: If I ask you a question, it's because I don't know the answer, and I'm interested in hearing it. Period. The only exceptions are if I'm recording an interview with you, or drilling you for a test.

Public Service Announcement #4: I almost never ask "social questions". If I don't know you, or don't want to talk, I'll greet you with some variant of "hello". If I ask "How are you?" I'll take a social "OK", but I'll also be ready for a twenty-minute rant or a two-hour brain dump. Really.

If you think I've asked a question before, there are several possible explanations:

• I may simply have forgotten your answer. This happens a lot, especially with names, but it can happen with anything if I haven't had a chance to write it down.
• I may even have forgotten that I asked the question. That can happen especially if I was distracted when, or shortly after, I asked it.
• I may not have heard your answer the last time. I'm both a little hard of hearing, and very easily distracted. I'll try to use the phrase "excuse me" in this case. If it's very noisy or hard for me to concentrate, you may have to repeat the answer several times. Bear with me.
• I may have asked the question with different words, and not understood the answer. Or I understood the answer, but it was so different from what I expected that I'm not sure you understood the question. I'm using different and more careful wording in an attempt to get a more understandable, more believable, or more accurate answer. Usually I'll say so, and say which case I'm working on, but I might not always have time. Please try to believe that it's a different question, even if it sounds the same to you.
• You may have given me the same information in response to a different question entirely (in which case I might easily have missed it in my efforts to understand it as the answer to the question I did ask), or even without my asking.
• The situation may have changed to the point where I'm no longer certain the old answer applies. I'll try to use the word "still" in this case, as in "Are you still upset at me?"
• You may simply be mis-remembering, or remembering when I asked the same question in an earlier situation.

There are also cases where you think I should already know the answer. Perhaps you actually told me the answer a few minutes ago, and I got distracted and forgot it. Perhaps it's something that any human being with the ability to understand normal people's emotions ought to have known implicitly. Perhaps it was implied by something you said, and I simply didn't catch the implication. I'm stupid that way, OK?

The fact is, I didn't know. If I ask you a question, it's because at the moment I'm asking it I don't know the answer. If I ask for more detail, it's because I feel that it's important for me to find out. It's OK in that case to tell me to drop the subject, and I'll either drop it or tell you why I think I need to know, and drop it if you still want me to.

I would really appreciate it if you could be patient with this stupid old bear, and not get too upset because I asked you what sounds like the same question in different words a few minutes ago. Please try to listen to my exact words, and answer the question I actually asked rather than repeating the answer I didn't understand the last time, or answering the question you think I intended to ask. Feel free to correct me if you think I'm asking the wrong question, and feel free to ask me why I seem to be asking the same damned question, or to clarify my phrasing.

Please don't get upset because I don't seem to be listening to you. I'm listening as best I can, and trying as hard as I can to understand you. I wouldn't be asking you questions if I wasn't trying to understand you.

Above all, please believe me when I tell you I don't know. I wouldn't lie to you.

River: Humans are from Earth, geeks are from Saturn

If you've had a bit of experience with people from other cultures and other countries, you probably know that some fairly common words and phrases have entirely different meanings in different countries that nominally share the same language. For example, the phrase "knock up" means "knock on [somebody's] door" in British English, but "get pregnant" in US English. "Stuffed" means "full" in America, and something unprintably obscene in Australia.

Things get even worse when you're talking about loan-words. "Shatsu" means "shirt" in Japanese, but "pantsu" means "underpants."

OK. Are you good at reading people? You may be surprised to learn that geeks are writing in a different language! When I speak loudly it's more likely that I'm trying to continue a sentence over your interruption, or frustrated at my inability to communicate, than that I'm angry at you. When I ask a question a second time it means that I want to know the answer and missed it the first time, not that I'm ignoring or harassing you. When I express disagremeent with you it means that I have a different opinion, not that I'm attacking you. When I leave the room it means I'm overloaded, not that I don't love you.

It's probably a lot worse if you've learned to trust your readings over what people say. Because what I say is what I mean, and what I look like and sound like is probably completely different from what you've learned to expect.

For decades now, Colleen has been relying on her reading of me, rather than on what I say. Very often she's been wrong, but it's been almost impossible to convince her of that. Her reading says I'm angry when I'm just frustrated, or panicking when I'm just trying to clear up unclear directions before I miss my turn. It's been almost impossible to clear these things up, because she's trusted her reading more than my plain words.

Now, it's also true that sometimes Colleen's readings of me are dead on, and she sometimes recognizes things about my feelings weeks before I notice them myself. That only makes it worse when she's wrong.

It must be a lot like being in one of those rooms with distorted perspective, where your eyes and your muscles are telling you different things. What do you trust?

Public Service Announcement #5: I'm the only one who knows what's going on inside my head. If I tell you what's going on in my head, you should take my word for it. I won't knowingly lead you astray about what I'm thinking or what I think I'm feeling.

Public Service Announcement #6: Your reading of my body language and tone of voice is probably wrong.