This isn't just a sitcom trope

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in my entire life.

Put your pitchforks away.

I’m a massive, unapologetic Harry Potter fan:

?‍♀️ I was 10 when the first book was published and literally grew up with the characters.

I’ve read each book dozens of times, and seen each movie equally as many.

I went to every single midnight premiere of both the books and the movies.

And at the age of 27 enjoyed an entire day of our honeymoon at Harry Potter World in Orlando, during which I spent nearly an hour choosing exactly which wand I wanted for myself.

The Crimes of Grindelwald told such an incoherent story complete with so many poor character choices it made me want to pull a bunch of Mandrakes out of the ground to knock myself unconscious.

For example:

A major plot point revolved around Newt and Tina’s failing romance.

Newt had been photographed with another girl, an old classmate from Hogwarts who had recently been engaged to some guy. Tina mistakenly believed Newt and this other girl were engaged, so she gave Newt the cold shoulder, and continued to do so until the third act of the movie.

At no point did Tina ever ask Newt about the photo. At no point did Newt ever make an attempt to discover why Tina was upset.

Eventually he awkwardly admitted his feelings for her, they got married, and lived happily ever after.

As a film and storytelling fanatic, it made my jaw clench in anger seeing these two brilliant characters turned into bumbling idiots for the sake of manufacturing tension – that led nowhere and contributed nothing to the plot.

And yet as ridiculous as it was, it’s not uncommon for real life misunderstandings to play out in equally silly ways.

You are not a mind reader (even though you act like it)

Each time you buy someone a gift, you are trying to imagine their wants, needs, and wishes.

We expect our best friend to know us better than we know ourselves, and our partner to say exactly the right thing to cheer us up.

Sometimes we succeed. Mostly we don’t.

Your confidence in knowing the minds of others far outweighs your accuracy. Researcher Nicholas Epley calls this “the illusion of insight.” The longer we’ve known someone, or the deeper our relationship, the higher our confidence.

But our accuracy does not follow suit.

I wrote about this in detail in Chapter 6 of Three New People:

“Consider the classic sitcom situation, in which a husband buys his wife a vacuum for her birthday. The wife is outraged, upset, and offended. The husband can’t understand. He knows his wife so well – she’s always saying that she wants a newer, better vacuum cleaner. She’s pointed it out a hundred times!

“I’m such a good husband,” he thinks. “I paid attention! Why doesn’t she like it? What’s wrong with her? What kind of game is she playing at?””

His wife is upset because, as far as she’s concerned, her husband doesn’t think she cleans enough or keeps a tidy house. She sees the vacuum as an indictment, not a gift.

Sitcoms and mainstream comedies are rife with these kinds of “silly” misunderstandings. But in real life they are destructive.

Check out Epley’s book Mindwise for a full treatment from the man himself.

If we are so bad at guessing how others think and feel, why do we expect them to do so much better for us?

That’s not what I meant!

Get your pitchforks back out:

If you’ve been misunderstood, it’s your fault.

At any given moment in a conversation you are either the communicator or the communicatee. When it’s your turn to speak, it’s your responsibility to make yourself and your intentions clear.

Intent vs Impact

Psychologists have long observed that we judge other people by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions.

The problem is you don’t have access to their intentions, and they don’t have access to yours. Even worse, you’re not always clear on your own intentions.

What matters is not our intentions, but our impact. That doesn’t mean you can control other people’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, or beliefs. Of course you can’t.

But misunderstandings are rarely rooted in disputes over values or fundamental beliefs. They typically arise from a lack of context.

The question to ask yourself is, What context is necessary for this person to fully understand the intention behind what I am about to do or say?

That’s my wife’s name

I’ve used this example before, but there’s an update, so here it is again:

I was once doing a magic show on a college campus for freshman orientation. An 18-year-old girl was on stage with me, volunteering.

“What’s your name?” I asked
“Lindsey,” she said.
“Lindsey? That’s my wife’s name!”

If you’ve never seen 1000 college students turn into an angry mob, it’s really something.

It totally took me by surprise – I had no idea what had gone wrong. And then it occurred to me that there had been a recent wave of high profile sexual harassment stories in the news.

The audience didn’t know I was married. And they didn’t know my wife’s name was Lindsey. The context of my comment was completely missing.

“That’s my wife’s name” sounded like a crude and inappropriate pickup attempt, from an adult male in power to a college freshman.

I quickly pointed to my wedding ring and explained.

The audience understood, but the emotional damage was done. I never fully got them back on  my side. At that moment I was angry, but upon reflection, it was absolutely my fault.

I was in charge. I was the communicator. Their understanding was my responsibility.

Cut to last week.

During a virtual workshop for a university, a young girl volunteered to help me with a communication demonstration.

“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Lindsey,” she said.
This time, I was prepared.
“Do you spell that with an ‘a’ or an ‘e’?”
“An ‘a’.”
“Okay, now I have a question. See, my wife’s name is also Lindsey, but she spells it with an ‘e.’ She can never find a souvenir spelled properly. They’re always spelled with an ‘a’. Does that happen to you, too?”

Taking responsibility doesn’t mean you have control over someone else’s actions, thoughts, or beliefs. It means you learn enough to do better in similar situations in the future.

Wokeness

One reader asked, “Don’t you think that audience was overreacting? Aren’t college students just too sensitive these days?”

My honest answer is, no. They weren’t overreacting. They’re not too sensitive.

For this generation that was a natural and normal reaction, based on the context of the age they’re growing up in. It’s not for me to tell them how to react.

It’s only for me to take responsibility for making myself understood in the way I wish to be.

If you find your friends, family members, colleagues, or even strangers aren’t responding to you the way you wish…

If you find yourself constantly justifying your actions by appealing to your good intentions…

There’s a simple remedy:

Take responsibility. Speak more clearly. Communicate with context.

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