Situation

I have had a recent situation in my life which has caused me to ponder a few things over the last couple of days. And since I am pondering them... ya'll can ponder them with me.

First pondering:

Why is it, as a society if something can be taken two different ways we AUTOMATICALLY assume it was meant the worse of the two ways? What ever happened to giving people the benefit of the doubt? Whenever I say something to Jake it appears as if he ALWAYS picks the worse of the two ways. Even though I normally mean the better of the two ways. (And I'm not just saying that because I want to sound good, really, I usually do. And if I don't, I'm going to tell him I don't.)

However, this doesn't just happen between Jake and I. It seems to happen in my writing also. For instance if I write the following paragraph:

Jill is a lovely girl. She is so pretty and really sweet. However, tonight when we were out she really bit the head off of this waiter. We were with my other friend and after Jill left she mentioned to me that she thought Jill was kind of a jerk. I tried to explain to her that it was sort of out of character for Jill but I could understand how she could get the wrong idea.

Now, reading that, what did you take away from it? Me, I take away that I have a good friend who apparently had a bad day and gave someone the wrong impression of her. However, some of the people in my life would take that as I am bashing Jill. And should Jill stumble upon it she would automatically assume that I hate her, even though that is not at all what I meant.

Why is that? I write a lot of things on this blog and depending on my mood they may come off sounding not at all how I meant them. However, you would think, at a bare minimum, the people who know me in real life would know what I meant or at least be willing to ask me.

Which brings me to point of ponderance number two:

You read something on some one's blog. You happen to know this person in real life and you also know the other person that they are writing about. You think that what the blog owner said was not nice. Do you:

a) write the blog owner and e-mail and ask them about it or call them on the telephone and ask them why they had written something about someone else you know.

or

b) Immediately go to the person they were writing about and tell them that the blog owner is writing mean things about them?? Which really only serves to hurt the person who was written about and then causes several hours of worry on the blog owners part because what they wrote was interpreted wrong and now they have to figure out how to "fix" the situation.

Obviously the majority of society will pick b, since that appears to be the way it usually happens with Dooce. If you have ever read some of her hate mail it seems to indicate that people jump first and ask questions later. And usually, people assume the worst. Why is that? Are we really living in a society where no one can just be a good person and have an off day? Do we really all have to assume the worst about one another?

For future reference there is a button over there, it says e-mail me. If I write something that you don't like click on it and ask me what I meant before assuming it was how you took it. Also, if I write something and it can be taken one of two ways, assume it was the better of the two ways. Especially if you are not going to e-mail me to ask about it!!