Being Misunderstood

Some problems begin with something that was never said.

Others begin with something that was said and understood completely differently.

I think the second kind can sometimes be worse.

Especially when two people cannot talk face to face.

Messages are dangerous things.

You write something with a smile on your face.

The other person reads it with anger.

You make a joke.

They think you are serious.

You add a smiley because you want to sound warm.

They think you are mocking them.

You answer briefly because you are busy.

They think you are losing interest.

Nothing in the message changes.

Only the person reading it does.

That is the strange thing about written communication.

Words arrive without the person who wrote them.

There is no voice.

No expression.

No hesitation.

No small smile that says:

“I’m joking.”

No eyes that say:

“Don’t take this the wrong way.”

The reader has to supply all of these things.

And sometimes they supply the wrong ones.

One misunderstanding is usually not a disaster.

You explain.

They understand.

You continue.

The real problem begins when the misunderstanding creates another misunderstanding.

Someone reads your message incorrectly and responds angrily.

Now you read their response.

But you do not know that their anger came from misunderstanding you.

So you misunderstand them too.

You answer quickly.

They answer more quickly.

Soon nobody is responding to what the other person actually meant.

Two people are arguing with imaginary versions of each other.

That is how something very small can become very large.

The strange part is that both people may believe they are being completely reasonable.

From your side, the story makes sense.

From their side, the story also makes sense.

The problem is that the two stories are no longer the same story.

This becomes especially dangerous at the beginning of a relationship.

When you have known someone for years, there is history.

You know how they joke.

You know when they are tired.

You know what they mean when they suddenly become quiet.

You have enough information to interpret the missing parts.

When you have just met someone, you have none of that.

So you create the missing parts yourself.

A new person does not yet exist completely in your mind.

You build them.

From a message.

A look.

A sentence.

Something they wrote somewhere.

Something somebody told you about them.

And inevitably, part of the person you build is imaginary.

Then comes the dangerous part.

You begin expecting the real person to behave like the imaginary one.

The version of them inside your head does not make mistakes.

Or perhaps it makes exactly the mistakes you already expect it to make.

Everything they say passes through that expectation.

A harmless sentence becomes evidence.

A late reply becomes evidence.

A joke becomes evidence.

Soon you are not trying to understand a person anymore.

You are trying to prove your theory about them.

Trust is difficult at the beginning because neither person has enough evidence yet.

Everybody wants a little certainty.

So we test people.

Sometimes consciously.

Usually not.

Will they call?

Will they remember?

Will they answer?

Will they become jealous?

Will they disappear?

Will they forgive this?

Will they notice that?

The other person does not know there is a test.

They do not know the rules.

And then we are disappointed when they fail.

Years ago, I wrote that perhaps this is one reason new relationships can become so difficult.

Two people do not yet know each other’s expectations, reactions, thoughts or personalities.

So each creates a version of the other.

And that invented person is given very little room to make mistakes.

I still think there is something true in that.

We say that first impressions are important.

Maybe too important.

Sometimes we meet someone on a bad day.

Sometimes we answer badly.

Sometimes we choose the wrong words.

Sometimes something that would be forgotten after ten years together becomes a major event after ten days.

Because there is no history to balance it.

Only the mistake.

Then time begins working against you.

Time is strange.

Sometimes it heals.

Sometimes it does exactly the opposite.

If a misunderstanding is resolved quickly, it can become nothing.

If it is allowed to stay, it begins collecting meaning.

You replay the conversation.

You remember different parts.

You wonder why they said that.

They wonder why you answered like this.

A day passes.

Then another.

Soon the problem is no longer the original sentence.

The problem becomes:

Why didn’t you explain?

Why didn’t you call?

Why did you wait?

Why didn’t you care enough to fix it?

Silence creates its own evidence.

And silence is particularly cruel because everybody can interpret it however they want.

Maybe you are silent because you are afraid of making things worse.

The other person thinks you do not care.

Maybe they are silent because they are waiting for you.

You think they want you gone.

Both people can be waiting for the same thing.

And neither moves.

That is perhaps the most frustrating kind of misunderstanding.

When there is no real disagreement.

Only two people standing on opposite sides of the same silence.

There was another thing I wrote back then that I still find important.

Trying to understand somebody entirely from what they write online is a mistake.

People write for different reasons.

Sometimes they write what they genuinely believe.

Sometimes they write because they are angry.

Sometimes because they are bored.

Sometimes because something reminded them of childhood.

Sometimes they want to make people laugh.

Sometimes they deliberately exaggerate.

Sometimes they write only because they want to write.

A collection of sentences is not a person.

I was writing on Ekşi Sözlük at the time.

Looking at that archive now makes this even more obvious.

One entry is technical.

The next is ridiculous.

Another is sad.

Another is angry.

Another is about a film.

Another is about a memory.

If somebody had tried to reconstruct my entire personality from a single day’s entries, they would probably have constructed several different people.

Maybe all of them would contain a small piece of me.

None would be me.

We make the same mistake outside the Internet too.

We reduce people to moments.

The thing they said during an argument.

The day they forgot something.

The time they disappointed us.

The message they answered badly.

We take one frame and pretend we have seen the entire film.

Perhaps understanding someone requires allowing them to contradict the version of them we have created.

That is not easy.

Being wrong about somebody can hurt our pride.

Sometimes it is easier to lose the person than admit that our interpretation was wrong.

And sometimes, after enough misunderstandings, fixing things really does become difficult.

Not because the original problem was impossible.

Because too much has been built on top of it.

New arguments.

New suspicions.

New sentences.

New silence.

You no longer know which misunderstanding you are trying to correct.

Maybe that is why certain conversations need to happen early.

Face to face if possible.

With enough time.

Without trying to win.

Not every disagreement needs a clever answer.

Sometimes all that is needed is a simple question:

“What did you mean?”

It sounds almost too easy.

But many relationships might have taken a different direction if someone had asked it before deciding they already knew the answer.

Years ago I ended that entry with a sentence:

Sometimes words are so inadequate.

I would probably add something today.

Sometimes words are inadequate.

But silence can be worse.