I Only Say This Because I Love You by Deborah Tannen

Author:Deborah Tannen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781588360090
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2001-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

MEN CAN BE INDIRECT, TOO

It’s important always to bear in mind that though women in the United States, on average, are more likely to utter and correctly interpret indirect requests, this pattern is not universal by any means. For one thing, cultural differences impinge. I have written about the greater tendency of Greeks and Greek Americans, both male and female, to use indirectness when making requests. For reasons of cultural influence or just individual personality, there are daughters as well as sons who object to their mothers’ indirectness.

There are also families in which fathers are more likely to make requests in an indirect way, and mothers more likely to be direct. Sherry’s family was one.

Sherry was taking her parents, who were in their eighties, to the airport, a two-hour drive. About halfway into the ride, her father asked, “Do you need gas?”

Pleased to show her father that she was responsible and had planned well, she answered with satisfaction, “No, I filled the tank before I picked you up.”

A little while passed; then her father spoke again. “When you lose your gallbladder,” he said, “it changes everything.” He had had his gallbladder removed the year before.

“Really?” she asked. “How so?”

“Oh, everything,” he said. “For example, when you have to go to the bathroom, you really have to go pretty soon or the consequences are disastrous.”

Suddenly Sherry put two and two together. “Oh, that’s why you asked about my needing gas!” she said. “You want me to make a rest stop!”

“Well I just thought,” he said, “that if you stopped for gas, I would take advantage and use the facilities.” Hesitant to impose by requiring the driver to stop, and modest about revealing potentially embarrassing details of his bodily plumbing, Sherry’s father had couched his request as a neutral question. It was his daughter who had missed his meaning, though she hastened to comply as soon as she got the point.

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