One day, during my freshman year, I was doing homework on
the couch when my roommate Jane* came in and asked very sweetly, “Maren, did
you eat my waffle?” I replied that I hadn’t and she said, “Well someone took a
bite of my waffle but then threw the rest of it away in the trashcan.” “Oh,” I
replied, turning back to my homework. “Well, it wasn’t me.” She just shrugged and went back to her room. No big deal, right?
Three weeks later, another waffle went missing. Not one of
Jane’s, but no one had fessed up to taking her waffle and apparently she was still upset. So she
decided to make a statement.
And these appeared on our fridge.
Jane expressed her frustrations (like the eating of her
waffles) with the rest of us through notes. She never told us she was upset or
had a problem. She just wrote a note.
Her intent, I think, was to avoid confrontation. But we
ended up with more problems than if she would have told us she was upset about
something.
First, there was often an uncomfortable feeling in our
dorm—especially after a new note showed up. We weren’t really sure how to
respond. Should we talk about it? We usually didn’t.
Second, we didn’t really take the notes seriously. Without
the face-to-face discussion none of us felt that responsible to actually follow
the notes. We even made fun of them sometimes.
Confrontation and conversation about problems can be
awkward, but I think the notes were worse. With discussion everyone could have
said her piece. We could have discussed solutions and the problem could have
been solved more effectively, without confusion.
As for the waffle-thief, she was never discovered…
This is a great example of how intent can be lost in written communication. Your roommate may have just been trying to be funny, but to the rest of you, it didn't come across that way. Writing notes is very one-sided. In a physical conversation, everyone can say their piece and it's easier to come to a resolution.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Katelyn about how the intent is lost in communication. I also think this story illustrates how a lot of confusion and awkwardness can be avoided by the directness of oratory. When we want something, let's just talk about it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the first two comments, and I've wondered for a while if as a society, people are less willing to have a confrontational conversation. These conversations are no more or less awkward now than they were fifty years ago, but it seems to me that people just don't want to deal with them.
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