Stop The - What does it mean when he/she does this?

Hi, it's Alex! Today I want to talk about a practice of interpreting people's behavior that I see all the time, it's like a way of thinking or a way of approaching human interaction that I think doesn't work very well. And I want to show where it comes up and how to move in a better direction. I see tons of questions on the internet, like advice questions, people looking for relationship advice, and I see this come up in person sometimes too, people will ask this question of their friends, things like that. People will ask: "Oh, what does it mean when someone does this?" So, it could be like a dating situation, that's like: "Oh, what does it mean if a guy texts me this?" or: "What does it mean if a girl doesn't text me back" "in this situation, and then she texts me this?" or like: "What does it mean if so-and-so does this to me?" And it can be in employment situations, like: "What does it mean if my boss says this?" or blah blah blah. It's all this emphasis on interpreting people's behavior, like how do I interpret these signals? How do I interpret these cues? And, I would say like 99% of the time, the advice that people give in response to those sorts of questions is not very good advice. So, people will be like: "Oh," like: "If the person doesn't text you back," "it means they're not interested." Well, sometimes that's true, also it could be that they're busy or they lost their phone or something, and then suddenly they text you back later, and it's like: "Whoa!" you had this interpretation, in your head, and it turned out to be false. I've seen this happen over and over again in my own life. And also, over time, as I've lived my life, I've seen that our culture is incredibly diverse, and it's getting more and more diverse. You have people coming to the U.S. from all sorts of different countries and cultures, and even within the U.S. you have all these different regions that have their own different cultures, their own pace of life, their own way of thinking. And then even in one region, each individual person is different. They grew up in a different family, they have a different personality. And, you can't reliably interpret human behavior in these sorts of rules. So, what do we do if we throw out this sort of like "This means this." we throw out that way of thinking? Well, it's pretty easy. The first thing that you can do is to look at the big picture. So, don't try to interpret isolated behaviors in terms of a set of rules based on social norms and cultural norms that might be arbitrary. Move away from that and instead look at the total pattern of someone's behavior. So, for example, if I'm trying to assess whether or not someone seems interested in me, I'm not gonna just say: "Oh," like "they were being really touchy-feely with me." I'm gonna look: are they touchy-feely with other people? And how does their behavior towards me relate to how they act with everyone? Like, some people are just really huggy people and they like to hug all their friends and they're like: "Oh my God, I love you so much!" and they say that to everybody. And I think, it doesn't mean that it's any less sincere, but I think it gives a different context from when it's someone who tends to usually be more reserved, and then suddenly they're acting that way towards you. I think it sends a different sort of signal. So that, that context is one way to get extra, extra information. There is another way, which is to just ask people. Like, if someone is doing something, and you're like "Hey," like, uhh "I noticed that you said this thing or that you did this thing" "and I was wondering" like "Have I been texting you too often?" or "Am I bothering you by doing this?" or "Would you be interested in this?" just be direct, use your words. I find that that's much more reliable than relying on these cultural cues and scripts. So, the second thing you can do is directness. And, the third thing that you can do, which I think is almost the most powerful thing, it's sometimes the hardest thing to do, is to just sit back and relax and admit that you don't know sometimes. There are tons of different people in my life. There are people that I'm close to, there are acquaintances, there are people that I only see a few times. And, most of those people, I don't know much about what's going on in their heads, and furthermore, I don't need to know. I don't need to understand the motivations behind their behaviors. All I need to do is interact with them in a positive and respectful way and, like if I'm sitting around and speculating about it, it's kind of a waste of time, because I don't have enough information to really know what's going on inside other people's heads. It's purely speculative in an overwhelming majority of the cases. And so, if I spend my time focusing on thinking about what other people are thinking, it's not going to lead me down a very good road, it's just imagination, like if I'm sort of fantasizing about it, if it's like a daydream, and it has no bearing on reality, then that's fine, as a way of sort of wasting time or whatever. But if I'm starting to think about it in terms of making decisions, like if I'm thinking about an employer like I send out some sort of material to a prospective employer, if I'm sitting around thinking like: "I wonder if they liked me as a job applicant?" I don't know that. It's just gonna be wasting my time. I could be putting that time, and that thought energy, into doing something else, something useful. So, whether it's a job situation, whether it's dating or friendship, or just any kind of social interaction with people, I think that practicing that restraint is really useful. Saying like: "I don't need to know what other people are thinking." "I don't need to interpret their behaviors." and then, of course, you can go back to the previous one, if you really do need to know, and you're not sure, first look at context, but if you're still not sure, then just ask. I've found this a really empowering way of approaching human relationships whether in a professional setting, a personal setting, anything. Yeah, I hope you've found this helpful! Thank you!