mis-communications

Posted by Luke Williams on July 14, 2005 in general thoughts | 0 comments

I spotted a couple of good ones last night and it got me thinking about how dangerous txt (and equally IM) messages can be.

Communication is so complex, bodylanguage, inflection, eye contact… its easy to forget about all that when you send a reply.

It’s so easy to mis-interpret though isn’t it? I think this mis-interpretation gives great insight into oneself.

“Yeah cool” was the message in question, (after a greater than usual time to respond) a reply to a question about plans to meet.

1) I assumed it was a good response, time to reply and shortness probably due to being busy.

2) Ms A assumed it was a non-commital “what-ev-aaa” or not really interested reply

3) Ms B (the recipient) assumed it was bad, it had no “kisses” or other affectionate statements, thereby meaning something must be wrong (length of reply factored in here)

Who was correct? Well, on reflection, I guess it could of been any of us!

What do these assumptions really mean?

Well, for the record, if you ever message me and I’m on air or deep in a studio project… an answer thats just a couple of words, just means I’m busy!

Ms A, could well of been on the nail, although she did change her response to sounds ok, see how it goes tomo… so I guess in hindsight probably the best response when you don’t know, you don’t know!

Ms B, well… seems to me she either knows more about the situation or person than we do (which is true) or has low self esteem at the moment and assumes the worst.

Weird eh… all that from 2 words!