Page 417 - The Social Animal

Liking, Loving, and Interpersonal Sensitivity 399

accusing, blaming, judging, or ridiculing the other person. Straight
talk is effective precisely because it enables the recipient to listen
nondefensively.
Straight talk seems so simple, and it obviously is effective. Why
don’t people use it as a matter of course? In the course of growing up
in a competitive society, most of us have learned how to protect our-
selves by making ourselves relatively invulnerable.Thus, when we are
hurt, we have learned not to show it. Rather, we have learned either
to avoid the person who hurt us or to lash out at him or her with
anger, judgment, or ridicule, which in turn makes the other person
defensive or produces a counterattack, and the argument escalates.
In short, the general lesson of our society is never to reveal your
vulnerabilities. This strategy may be useful and in some situations
even essential, but in many circumstances it is inappropriate, dysfunc-
tional, and counterproductive. It is probably unwise to reveal your vul-
nerability to someone who is your sworn enemy. But it is almost
certainly unwise to conceal your vulnerability from someone who is
your loving friend and cares about you. Thus, if Alice and Phil had
known about the other’s insecurity, they each could have acted in ways
that would have made the other feel more secure. Because each of
them had overlearned the societal lesson of “attack rather than reveal,”
they inadvertently placed themselves on a collision course.
Often, the problem is even more complicated than the one de-
scribed in this example. Alice and Phil seem to have some idea of
what their concerns and feelings are. They got into serious conflict
primarily because they had difficulty communicating their insecurity
and hurt feelings with each other. But, in many situations, people are
not fully aware of their own needs, wants, and feelings. Instead, they
may have a vague feeling of discomfort or unhappiness that they can’t
easily pinpoint. Often they misattribute that vague feeling; for exam-
ple, Phil may feel uncomfortable, and he could attribute his discom-
fort to embarrassment over Alice’s allegedly flirtatious behavior
rather than to his own underlying insecurities about advancing mid-
dle age. Thus, if we are not in touch with our own feelings and can-
not articulate them clearly to ourselves, we cannot communicate
them to another person. The key issue is sensitivity. Can we learn to
be more sensitive to our own feelings? Can we learn to be sensitive
to others so that, when people do make themselves vulnerable, we
treat that vulnerability with care and respect?