Here's My Theory

Here’s My Law: Miscommunication in Arguments

“That’s not what I meant!” - The classic exclamation that manages to make an appearance in most any argument. It isn’t any wonder why, though, because one of the most common causes of arguments is miscommunication.

When someone says this, they usually mean “it doesn’t matter if it upset you, you just misunderstood what I said/did.” The problem here is that miscommunication is not an excuse for hurting someone’s feelings, although it might very well be the reason. By using it as an excuse, you can quickly turn a small argument into a huge blowout.

Here’s My Law:

It doesn’t matter what you meant by something. It only matters how it is interpreted by other people.

In other words, it only matters what the other person thinks you meant. If you do or say anything that ends up hurting someone’s feelings and they confront you about it, it really doesn’t matter whether you meant it in the way they interpreted it or not. What matters is that they interpreted it in that way and it hurt their feelings.

The wrong move from here is to blame the other person for misunderstanding and treating yourself as a completely innocent person when, in fact, you were the one who did or said the wrong thing. When it comes down to it, you are the only person who knows your intentions, and so the rest of the world can only go by interpretation of your words, tone, and actions.

The right thing to do is apologize and say something along the lines of “I’m sorry if what I said upset you, but I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant was ::insert intention:: but I am sorry and I can see why it made you feel the way it did. I’ll try to remember this to avoid this in the future.”

It may be hard to let go of your ego enough to say something like this, but the only things you get from being stubborn are longer fights and less friends.