There are people who go through life never learning to ask a point black question. My guess is that they don’t want to deal with hearing “no”. They drop hints left and right, hoping that some will stick and that there are people willing or can’t help picking them.
I can’t stress the amount of trouble this can get one into. If not at first, for sure at some point. Miscommunication is the first fruit of hint dropping. And it only gets worse when you use an intermediary who interprets a hint and drops another hint to someone else.
When I was first married and moved to California, there was something that I needed to communicate with my mother in law. And because we were very new to our relationship face to face, we used Conrad to interpret for us. He quickly and wisely realized he was getting caught in the middle and managed to shake off the unrealistic expectation of him as mediator. He told us both “you know what, figure it out amongst yourselves, and leave me out of it” I can’t explain how shocking his brushing us both off was. It made me feel naked and without an ally.
I took a deep breath and started working in earnest on my direct and personal relationship with my mother in law, who is “mom” for me and one of my best friends.
It was a risk that he took. Conrad is a peacemaker but I guess he trusted both of us enough to believe that we will make it work. On the other hand, he knew that meddling and starting to mediate between us will make the rest of his life miserable and I wouldn’t have had the gift of a very dear relationship.
Why did I title my post “fishing”? Because hint dropping is like fishing, and catching the bite. At some point or another, we’ve all done it, especially in our family, though we know we are just enabling someone to continue fishing. Not saying anything about it, you are setting yourself for a miserable life of being a fish.
My dad had a hint dropped in his lap and he passed it on to me, and so I volunteered Conrad for something that someone may have said that they need. Today I went and talked with my dad about it, to clarify who needs what, if indeed they need anything, and asked them to call Conrad directly. He may say yes, he may say no. That is not my problem, nor my dad’s problem.
It is high time we stopped trying to control the wellbeing of all relationships around us. This is especially important for the peacemakers. Consequences and learning – the hard-way sometimes, are imperative to long-lasting and healthy growing.
There are two questions I ask and ought to ask shamelessly; first one, when an inappropriate question of curiosity is asked, is to respond:”why do you want to know?” and the other one, when someone is dropping hints to call them out on it: “I can’t read your mind. And I don’t take hints. Do you have something to ask me?”