(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Following up the references in Bury, snagged a couple more books on how men and women communicate, and almost immediately discovered my problem and its solution:

"It is also worth noting that aggressively negative questioning often leads people to take up entrenched positions - especially in a public debate - and little cognitive progress is made when this happens. Defensiveness is not an attitude which encourages creative thinking. Supportive elicitations and modified criticisms are much more likely to facilitate good quality open-ended discussion or productive exploratory talk."
- Janet Holmes, Women, Men, and Politeness

Well, dur, you may remark. My problem has been - is - that I sometimes provoke that defensiveness with my bluntness, my "bald disagreement", then get annoyed by all the defensive talk and only become even more blunt. What I have to accept is that, if I want a good discussion, I need to try to avoid provoking defensive responses in the first place, regardless of what I may think of that kind of reaction. (Intriguingly, as ChiTARDIS showed, I'm seldom so blunt in face-to-face communication - not only is this a "male" way of speaking, it's also an Internet way of speaking, terse and to the point. Or, to put it another way: tl;dr.)

More on this shortly.

Comments

[spastasmagoria.livejournal.com]

Here's a question--are you really less blunt face-to-face, or does your non-verbal communication soften the blow? Most of our communication is non-verbal, so it's no doubt you 'come off' as completely different in person than online.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

No, I think I really am less blunt! I'm hazily aware that, with real-time feedback from (for example) a convention panel audience, I tend to add a lot more qualifying statements, try to defuse things with humour more, etc. In short, I behave more politely. At ChiTARDIS I went about apologising for my past behaviour online, but then immediately fell back into my usual habits - I guess the revelation I had at the con is the beginning of a process, not the end of it!