I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook anymore because Facebook is embarrassing now but I scrolled through the other day and saw a post a friend of mine had shared. It was about subtext, and how the user had adopted a “categorical denial” of it. I was impressed.
I saw myself in the description of someone very aware of everyday subtext. I too spend many hours decoding why the person who once wanted to get lunch with me did not return my friendly wave on campus. I too find it hard to believe that people who stay quiet in workshop are not fundamentally aware of their overt aggression. I too count how many times someone speaks over me in a conversation. Doesn’t everyone?
Apparently not! Honestly shocking. But the post said that there are reasons some people are hyper-attuned to subtext (tone, inflection, body language) and others either don’t notice, or don’t read into it, or simply brush it off. This seems liberating and very exciting to me. I love choosing things and I think I’m going to start choosing to not read so deeply into subtext.
I think one of the biggest changes that this new choice will bring is that by choosing to kill subtextual analysis (to a reasonable point) I will also stop trying so neurotically to communicate through it as well. The idea of not being consistently aware of which way my legs are crossed and whether or not my arms are, and trying to weaponized that knowledge, is strangely freeing. It will mean I can just say openly “I like you” or “I am uncomfortable” instead of silently trying to ask someone to locate my feelings while I verbally oppose them with my body.
There is room for intuition and picking up signals—like when a friend seems nervous or distracted—without turning the noticing into soft panic: the nervousness must mean she didn’t like the way I answered her email last week and now I’ll have to pay for our lunches to make it up to her. I spend a heck of a lot of time thinking about who I have to buy lunch.
So here I am going into the weekend with a new project: Take people at their word. Insist on clear communication. Stop passive-aggressively trying to signal something with the crossing of my limbs.
In the meantime ask me why my I walked in the rain today and soaked my shoes and now will get a cold. Nope definitely no subtext here okay I’m not perfect always learning!!