I just found the answer to all social tensions and inconveniences. Stay with me. 

There’s a really good Tumblr thread I saw recently. It started off boring enough – just a story about how do you say no to a friend who keeps wanting to come over and stay at your place. The original poster didn’t want to outright reject his friend, kept giving hints and ‘excuses’, and that friend just seems completely oblivious to the subtly, and just kept asking. One commenter’s answer provided the universal theory of everything when it comes to social situations like this: it’s a classic situation where Guess culture meets Ask culture.

The original poster was a Guesser. They don’t like direct confrontation and prefer to talk indirectly, using behavioural cues, hints and other sophisticated social cues that most folks with high EQ would catch. They don’t like being the ‘bad guy’ in rejecting others, yet maintaining boundaries is hard with non-Guessers. Even when they do ask for things, it’s not directly, and only when they are sure the reply will be a yes. Sometimes they get passive-aggressive. The friend was an Asker. This group ask for what they want directly, but expect that they might get a no, and it’s ok. 

Whole lots of problems emerge when Askers meet Guessers, and ask for things that seems out of line and outrageous. Askers get frustrated with Guessers’ apparent wishy-washiness, and just want a straight answer. Sometimes married couples are one of each and the children end up translating for both sides. 

This really resonated because I’m completely a Guesser through and through. I think you might get that a lot in Asian cultures perhaps. But I’m trying and learning  to be more of an Asker, but failing. Reading that illuminating social analysis was really helpful in providing the right names and words to talk about relationships and social dynamics like that.In fact, I feel that this Ask versus Guess culture is probably at the core of every personal and social tension/conflict. 

But how does one move from Guessing to Asking? Reading about how the Guessers had been trying out Asking had been super educational. For so long as a Guesser, I was always mortified of asking because I assumed people might get offended if you asked for things. But because I’m a Guesser, I can frame it in a way to help other Guessers, but giving them permission to say no, an escape route, like “I won’t get angry or anything if you say no”. It’s all about framing expectations. And because they might possibly say no, I can enter that situation with the expectations that I might get a no, and have to learn to accept it.

So, at the heart of it, learning about Guessing versus Asking is basically about learning to say no and learning to accept a no.

Mind-blown. ?