Communication styles
Dec. 8th, 2005 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayI'm a US Southerner, both by nurture and preference in speech patterns. Communicating in Japan, even with few words, often feels more natural somehow than with New Yorkers... the flow and mutual consideration of the former seem intuitive, while the latter often seems brash and noisy and prone to attempts to dominate in conversation.
[minor deviation from current personal experiment]
On top of culture, growing up I was a low-status, weird geeky kid who was the butt of harassment and frequent physical violence from groups of other kids... I learned to try to get my message across conversationally while giving those around me as little excuse as possible to take offense. Anything perceived as assertive on my part would generate teasing and putdowns at best, getting beaten-up or stoned (hit with big rocks, not drugs) again at worst. So on top of the cultural norms, I learned to exceed them...
[end deviation]
So, in person, I'm generally coming from Pleasant, Believed, Understood, Remembered (PBUR) in all person-to-person communications. Understood is in a distant third place. I go to lengths to structure in-person conversation so to minimize the possibility of conflict, or at least to leave a face-saving way out for the other person(s). Maintaining the interpersonal relationship is far more important to me than the passing, temporal content of whatever I happen to be saying at the moment.
For me, speech stressing Understood is limited to lecturing others, as in teaching a class or giving a presentation. Other communication forms, particularly some impersonal, online forms, may also find me in a neutral balance.
Someone in a group using Understood will often come across to me as pushy or blunt, or as attempting to impose their preferences, running over everyone else's... often, I'll get wary or defensive when that form of speech is used. But I'll try to avoid conflict at my annoyance at their use of a direct, aggressive style, instead trying to smile and ignore or placate it.
[minor deviation from current personal experiment]
On top of culture, growing up I was a low-status, weird geeky kid who was the butt of harassment and frequent physical violence from groups of other kids... I learned to try to get my message across conversationally while giving those around me as little excuse as possible to take offense. Anything perceived as assertive on my part would generate teasing and putdowns at best, getting beaten-up or stoned (hit with big rocks, not drugs) again at worst. So on top of the cultural norms, I learned to exceed them...
[end deviation]
So, in person, I'm generally coming from Pleasant, Believed, Understood, Remembered (PBUR) in all person-to-person communications. Understood is in a distant third place. I go to lengths to structure in-person conversation so to minimize the possibility of conflict, or at least to leave a face-saving way out for the other person(s). Maintaining the interpersonal relationship is far more important to me than the passing, temporal content of whatever I happen to be saying at the moment.
For me, speech stressing Understood is limited to lecturing others, as in teaching a class or giving a presentation. Other communication forms, particularly some impersonal, online forms, may also find me in a neutral balance.
Someone in a group using Understood will often come across to me as pushy or blunt, or as attempting to impose their preferences, running over everyone else's... often, I'll get wary or defensive when that form of speech is used. But I'll try to avoid conflict at my annoyance at their use of a direct, aggressive style, instead trying to smile and ignore or placate it.
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Re: with Pleasant being[...]definitely annoying when coming from other people.
Date: 2005-12-13 06:55 pm (UTC)Example: If someone I barely know starts giving me lots of gifts, part of me will wonder what their angle is, and what they are wanting from me, and where is the hidden string. I don't assume that this absolutely will be the case - some people are just generous and that's all - but I'll start keeping an eye on the situation a little more closely.
Likewise, an overabundance of compliments from someone I don't know well will make me uneasy. One or two compliments, fine; more than that and I'll start feeling "buttered up."
Where I come from (NYC), we're trained early not to trust strangers who are overly pleasant to us. In the big city, an unknown adult who offers candy to a kid is assumed to be a dangerous stalker. Wariness means survival. That's not just paranoia; when I was 12 one of my childhood playmates from the next block over was abducted and killed. And we lived in "a nice neighborhood" - pretty houses, trees, no broken glass on the street. Lots of abductors lure kids in by being nice. Hell, the two times I was sexually abused as a child, the perp (one known, one unknown) tried to gain my trust by playing a game with me first. Why would I trust an overly-friendly stranger?
An unknown adult who strikes up a conversation on the subway might be trying to distract me so that their accomplice can rob me, unless it's the day after the Yanks or Mets have won the series and then everyone's family.
On the subway where we're squished up against each others' bodies like sardines in a can, the only privacy we have is to not make eye contact, and it's considered really intrusive if you keep looking at someone, even with a smile. Especially with a smile, 'cause that's definite attention, whereas a simple stare might just mean that your eyes happen to be resting in that direction.
A Nebraska friend once left his car engine idling outside my house to warm it up on a snowy day. When I realized that he left his key in the ignition and the door unlocked, I made him run right out to watch it so that it didn't get stolen. Had he left it out long enough, it would have been. My family has had more cars stolen and broken into than I can count.
My friend from Ottawa, Canada was once visiting and someone knocked on my door. I leaped to block the door when it was clear that she was about to open it. "Who is it?" I asked through the door. "We want to talk to you about a cable TV offer," the man said. "Not interested," I replied. My friend thought I was rude for not opening the door. I thought she was risking her life by even thinking of opening the door.
So this is why "pleasant = dangerous" makes sense in some cultures.
Re: with Pleasant being[...]definitely annoying when coming from other people.
Date: 2005-12-13 07:30 pm (UTC)I *do* see that being unable to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate pleasantness can lead to a feeling that it's safer to default to assuming it's inappropriate, but I think that's better dealt with by using methods from Gavin de Becker's "Gift of Fear".
I like NYC, and find it comfortable. Urban spaces make more sense to me than rural ones, but that's because I'm more familiar with urban cultures. (I come from generations of city/suburban folk. My father's mother grew up on a farm, but that's not something she shared with me.)
When I was in high school in Colorado, I was surrounded by ranchers' kids who'd never been in a big city, and were doing things like counting their money on the sidewalk, and failing to take note of the relative security of their handbags. I get the urban wariness, and that doesn't make me nervous the way Griff's stated preference does.
Re: with Pleasant being[...]definitely annoying when coming from other people.
Date: 2005-12-13 11:36 pm (UTC)Re: with Pleasant being[...]definitely annoying when coming from other people.
Date: 2005-12-14 02:35 am (UTC)Besides which, if "pleasant" in any form makes you itch, it's probably just as well for you to have an allergic reaction to people who default to that mode.
Re: with Pleasant being[...]definitely annoying when coming from other people.
Date: 2005-12-13 08:47 pm (UTC)Re: with Pleasant being[...]definitely annoying when coming from other people.
Date: 2005-12-13 11:37 pm (UTC)Re: with Pleasant being[...]definitely annoying when coming from other people.
Date: 2005-12-14 02:41 am (UTC)Re: with Pleasant being[...]definitely annoying when coming from other people.
Date: 2005-12-14 08:21 am (UTC)Pleasant, in my world, is a way of holding people at arm's length and putting up a wall.
Re: with Pleasant being[...]definitely annoying when coming from other people.
Date: 2005-12-14 12:19 pm (UTC)We've already established pretty well that you and I wouldn't do well in person.