I’ve been in a lot of different circles in my life and have met at least a few dozen people in every one of them. As a result, I’ve had countless conversations about every subject under the sun. Something I’ve noticed is that many people have a tendency to speak in code. By that I mean they’ll say one thing when they really mean something else, and they’re expecting me to pick up on their actual meaning. I’ve never been good at that. For whatever reason, I have little to no skill in detecting a hidden meaning, translating it into plain speech, and then responding with another coded message. On the rare occasions that I’ve managed to do it successfully, I found it tiring and unsatisfying.
I tend to take people at face value and often don’t realize when they’re saying one thing but meaning something else entirely. As such, I strongly prefer talking to people who are straightforward and say exactly what they mean. I try to do that as much as I can in conversation, even if doing so makes someone else see me as strange or out of the loop. That’s happened on several occasions, but something interesting has also happened on other occasions when I’ve been direct and honest: the other person takes it in stride. On many occasions, I’ve admitted to not knowing about a subject that someone has raised or asked several times for them to speak up or restate what they’ve said. In those cases, the other people probably appreciated my honesty as well as my efforts to better understand them. At the very least, it’s prevented many misunderstandings and resulted in better conversations.
Whether my straightforwardness and honesty has encouraged other people to do the same or has simply arisen in conversations with people who already do that, I can’t say. But I do love those kinds of conversations and I prefer talking to people who also practice those habits. I think it would lead to less confusion, more opportunities to truly get to know each other, and greater harmony if more people were straightforward and honest in their communication. I appreciate the people who already do this and I hope more people make it a regular practice.