The Need To Explain.

It’s quite an amusing fenomena that sometimes when we asked something, people don’t answer it directly but instead explaining something.

For example :

“where do you live?” | “oh, i don’t live with my parents here, I live alone at a dorm.”

Err, that’s not exactly answering the question right?

Or, just like a conversation I had earlier :

“I don’t like changing plan when I travel with bunch of people.”

“hmm, yeah that can be quite a hassle. however, what do your friends think about the change of plan?”

“well, these people are great people to travel with.”

“err...what I mean is, do they have any objection on the change? If not, then it should be fine.”

“ohh...yes, they’re fine. they’re cool with it.”

Again, not really answering my real question but instead explaining about something else.

Thus, I made a conclusion that sometimes our pre-assumption translates something we hear according to what we think we hear people say instead of what people really say. Thus, come the need to explain because we have somehow mislead the question into something we have already thought of.

Maybe my friend thought that I asked the question because I thought his friends are bunch of whiny people who would easily complain when something doesn’t go as expected. Thus, he explained that his friends are great people to travel with. While my REAL QUESTION was whether everyone was okay with the change of plan and WHY I asked that question was not because I thought that his friends are bunch of whiny people but because if everyone’s agree with the change of plan then it should be fine and he should not be worry about it.

And I did that too. When someone asked me a question, sometimes I felt the need to explain something in the answer to ensure that he / she really get what I mean. Or sometimes, simply because I assumed things as the reason why he / she asked the question thus, I felt the need to explain a bit more to answer his / her reason. If you pay attention to the explanatory answer, you will find some underlying truth or actual feeling in response of the question. That is very interesting.