Knowing What Our Partners Really Mean
Sometimes we know someone so well that we can, almost always, predict what they want, or what they mean to say, without needing them to tell us. We might recognise a facial expression, tone of voice, choice of diction, or a specific gait that they unconsciously do. We might learn that they do this because they’re sad, angry, tired, or have had a long day. It may be because they secretly want a hug or a cup of tea. We learn these mannerisms and habits after knowing and watching the person for enough time to see a pattern emerge. They might not be obvious, so we might only subconsciously make the connection. In that case we might not be able to explain to someone else exactly what signs we saw to justify our conclusion; we “just know”. Those who are more astute may pay greater attention, and be aware of the precise hints that others have.
These predictions are convenient because they bypass the need of others to explain themselves. This saves time and effort, even if it is minimal. Some people have grown accustomed to these conveniences, and may expect others to know them. It is reasonable to expect that your partner will predict your needs if they have been doing so consistently in the past. However, there are some who come to associate close relationships with others being able to simply know what the other person means, without having to say so explicitly. This is somewhat natural, as one will notice the correlation between their many relationships and these predictions, but it is still only natural as an assumption. Having a close relationship is not necessarily the cause for people being able to read you, it is merely a contributing factor. This is the first mistake: the irrational demand for partners to simply know what you mean. Just because you know someone well does not mean that they must necessarily be able to predict what you mean and what you want.
Issues
What is worse is when people irrationally expect any new relationship to take on this silent understanding of what one really means. This may be because they have come to define close relationships as needing these predictions; to them, their partner isn’t really close, or doesn’t really love them unless they have learned exactly what is meant, without explanation. This is the second mistake: the fallacious association between just knowing what you mean, and intimacy.
This expectation for others to understand you is irrational because it makes demands of others, putting all the responsibility of communication on the other person. It irrationally demands that you should have learned all the hidden meanings, intricacies of behaviour and mood changes, and subtle signs. If you have not explicitly taught someone these things, then you cannot reasonable expect the person to know them. To expect that the other person just know these things is to demand now that they should have learned these things in the past. That is like teaching students arithmetic, and then failing them at the end of the year because they did not learn algebra. If you never told the students to learn algebra, they have no way to know that they should have learned it. Imagine being told that you were supposed to know a whole field of math you’ve never heard of; you would feel that you had been tricked and set up to fail. When someone refuses to explain themselves because they think you simply should know what they mean, they have entrapped you, setting you up to fail. Demanding that someone understand you is refusing to put any effort into communication, and demanding the other person to do all the effort.
You cannot insist that someone should know something unless you ensured that it was taught to them. If you say that someone should know something, you should be able to explain exactly why they should know it. You should be able to point to specific cases where the thing was explained to them, and was done so clearly so that there was no chance that they would have missed it. Missing out on things is completely normal and isn’t a sign that they don’t care. You cannot be psychic and simply know that you should care about it. What matters is whether or not they care after you have clearly explained to them why it matters.We can only spend so much time learning things, and we’re not necessarily going to learn it if we don’t know it needs to be learned.
You may think that predicting each other is important, but you came to that conclusion on your own. Your partner may have not come to that same conclusion. They might not have seen what you saw that helped you realise this is important. At one point you didn’t know it either, so you learned it. There’s no reason to think that absolutely everyone else learns it too, or learns it at the same time, especially since a lot of people might disagree that such nonverbal communication is important. If you want someone to know something, you have to inform them.
Communication and Perception
Communication is difficult, and if you are not willing to work to be understood, even with close relations, you should not expect to be understood. That is simply being lazy, and not putting in the same effort that you demand from a relationship. Relationships are difficult, and usually require work to be maintained. The mind is extremely complicated, most people don’t even fully understand their own intricacies. We develop and learn extremely differently based on the infinite number of factors that we grow up with and experience. We are too complicated to be so easily predicted. Even your parents, siblings, and romantic partners might not fully understand everything you mean. A couple that has been living together for decades may still learn things about each other that they could have never predicted.
On top of that, too many people assume that what they see is strictly what is true. Our perception is extremely flawed; what we see isn’t always what really is, and how we choose to interpret those things is fraught with bias. The worst way to have a relationship with someone is to assume that they always mean everything they say, or to assume the causes and justifications for their actions. This disrespects them because it treats them as predictable and simple. It’s also just a bad idea because that’s how you get things wrong, by making lazy assumptions. Even complex analyses like game theory and behavioural psychology get many things wrong, often because they try to simplify and reduce people to a handful of measurements. This may work for a lot of people, but if you want a healthy relationship that doesn’t end in anger and divorce, you should both make the effort to explain to each other anything and everything you can. We all think differently and consider different things as obvious, so what you feel is a safe assumption about your partner may be a completely different obvious thing to them. Sometimes things simply don’t come up, even for years or decades. It is perfectly possibly to find out your husband or wife has the opposite political view from you, or has a view that you never thought to bring up simply because you assume that everyone thinks the same way.
Solution
I don’t think nonverbal communication is important or good. It assumes that we are all simplistic robots that have the same consistent signs, that we are unable to resist showing what we feel. I do a lot of things that others, for whatever reason, assume mean things which they do not mean. People sometimes say that I look tired, angry, sad, happy, or distracted, and I almost always am not what they claim I am. It usually comes as a surprise, since I haven’t done anything differently so I have no idea what has given them that impression. Assuming our highly subjective judgments and intuitions are always right is just arrogance. The willingness and appreciation of how wrong we can be is fundamental to an accurate perception of reality. The more we consider that our assumptions may be wrong, the more of our errors we can find and correct.
We should try to be clear and explicit with everyone. Every culture, subculture, group of friends, and individual person has a different idea of what the obvious interpretation for something is. What you consider to be an obvious sign to tell someone to leave you alone may be viewed by others as friendliness. It is wrong to assume that your views are universal or objectively better, especially if they rely on subtext and assumptions that you haven’t made clear. I can’t expect you to know the secret meaning of something if you’ve never heard of it before. Ultimately, that is what subtext, subtlety, mannerisms, and nonverbal communication are: secrets. We hide the true meaning behind something else, as if writing a secret coded message, and we never tell anyone how to decode it because we assume everyone else learned the same code. It may as well be going to a country that doesn’t speak English, and expecting that everyone understand you in English because until now, everyone you met grew up learning English. That is, despite how much people object, essentially what we do when we refuse to communicate explicitly.
It is not difficult, nor does it take a lot of time to be overtly clear. Say what you mean, and don’t hide it because of arbitrary preferences you have, because it’s not worth it. If you’ve ever been upset because someone “should have understood” you, that is a problem you created by not putting in the effort to be understood. Blaming their lack of psychic-ness is just an excuse to make yourself feel better. It is simple and fast to correct someone when they’ve misunderstood, or to say what you’re thinking.
Reasons We Are Not Direct
The likely reason we are not clear is because of social norms to prevent offence. We should not be offended by people telling us what they want, or what they really think. Being offended is something that we learn. Being told that you won’t fit into a dress does not mean that the person thinks you are fat. More importantly, them thinking you are fat is not a reason to be insulted, because it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make you fat, but even if it did, being obese is not a reason to be sad. This is simply an arbitrary social norm stating that being obese makes you unattractive to potential mates, and that being unattractive is for some reason bad. This is nothing more than chauvinism and sex drive taking form in society’s rules.
Another reason people might not want to be direct is that they think it is unfair. For example, stating that you like a diamond ring might seem unfair because you might think that your partner will feel pressured into buying it. This is not the case, because if both partners are being honest, there would be no pressure to do anything that was not asked. If they were both honest, Partner A would be free to say that they like a diamond ring, and Partner B would be free to ask if Partner A wants it. Partner A is also free to ask Partner B to buy it for them. And Partner B is equally free to say that they are not comfortable spending the money for it, and they can rationally discuss whether or not buying it would be a good idea in the future. In the end, direct honesty means that you will both express what you really think and come to a compromise or conclusion you both agree on. Lying and hiding what you really mean is not “more fair”, and is actually dishonest and disrespectful. It denies your partner the opportunity to make the choice themselves. What’s worse is when you don’t want to explicitly say it because you feel it will pressure them, but instead you implicitly say it and expect them to understand. That is hypocritically doing the same thing, just with the advantage of not feeling guilty because you never said it explicitly. In this case, you would be slightly surprised when you received the diamond ring, but really you expected them to read your signs and know that you wanted it.
It is selfish to make demands of our partners without any consideration to how difficult it is for them. Doing this can set them up for a situation where they are bound to fail because the demands you put on them were impossible, or at least too difficult, to comply with. This is not fair for them, lazy for you, and results in poor communication. This might result in even worse issues later on.
The only way to make sure that someone knows something is to tell them.