Woman is asking people in bcc email to share a referral that gives both parties a $25 MasterCard gift card.
Woman asks for the referral and writes: “Your referral will give both of us a $25 gift card for each service I order. Here’s the link…”
Man replies, “I am sure one of your many friends and advisors can do this for you.”
Woman responds, “I have no idea what you meant by your one simple statement, ‘I am sure one of your many friends and advisers can do this for you.’ I hate the nuances of the written word. Without actually hearing you say it along with the way you say it, verbally, your one simple statement could mean so many things. I read it over and over and each time I came up with a different take on it. There could be a number of different meanings and I have no idea if any of them are right. Following are just some of the meanings I came up with
1) “Ask someone else. I’m done dealing with you.” If so, why bother to reply at all?
2) “No thank you, I’m not interested.” If that’s what you meant, wouldn’t you have just said it that way and why mention ‘friends and advisers’?
3) “You already asked me that question and when I don’t answer your question(s), you should know my answer is ‘no’ or know that I’m not going to answer your question(s). So, stop bugging me.” If that’s your meaning, why bother to reply at all and why mention ‘friends and advisers’?
4) “Ask someone else because I’m not comfortable dealing with you on a personal level.” If that was the case, why didn’t you say so?
5) “I’m not your friend or adviser ” Is that your position? You’d said to email you for advice, so that meaning confuses me
6) “You said you wanted my advice on your ‘major’ issues. You’ll discuss those issues with your ‘many friends and advisers but not with me, even though I was willing to help. So I’m upset with you.” If that’s what you meant, then why didn’t you just say so? My internet outage and our respective schedules didn’t allow for that discussion by email. I know you were willing to help me and I really appreciate it. I’d really have loved your insight and I’m truly sorry it wasn’t possible this time.
“I’m hopelessly confused and feel like I’m walking on eggshells with what I write to you. Without hearing you say that statement verbally, I’m impossibly lost on your meaning. Would you please explain what you meant by it?
Man responds, “My meaning is just what the words say, ask someone else. Please stop reading all those others things into my words. What I say is what I say, no more than that.”
Woman replies, “Okay. For future reference, for all question(s) that I ask and you don’t answer, should I assume your answer is always a ‘no’?”
Man gets nasty and sarcastic.
This is a great example of very poor communication between a man and woman or better known as, “why not to use text or email to ‘talk’ to each other—because it’s not really talking.”
