Complex Numbers

Subtletting

6. Subtlety is always lost on me, except when it's not.

I don't know. I think I'm a pretty straightforward kind of person. What I say is generally what I mean - humorous comments excepted.

I can also be passive-aggressive, but that doesn't translate too well to the internet, and I'm working on that little problem.

So to me, when someone says something, I'll generally take it at face value.

I know this woman who's single, never been married, rarely dates. When she does date, she debriefs to her friends - me included, if I can't plead a sudden need to wash my hair. No, she's no one on Writing.com, so quit wondering if it's you. Anyway, during these sessions, she replays every gesture, every nuance of speech, every word spoken, and analyzes it for hidden meanings. I don't know if this is a chick thing in general, or if it's mostly her, but the third time I heard her do this, I said, "You know, not every conversation is fraught with hidden meaning."

She squinted at me. "Yes, it is."

From that point on, I was very, very careful about what I said around her, how I said it, and what position my hands were in when I said it. And I'm glad I'm not dating anymore.

I have to wonder what it's like to live in a world where saying something like, "I'm hungry," for instance, means something other than "I'm hungry." I suppose it could mean, "Offer to cook me something," or "I want to go out to eat," or "I want to have mad, passionate sex with you." Or something else entirely. When I say it, I mean, "I'm hungry." When I hear my wife, or one of my friends say it, I think they mean, "I'm hungry." Sometimes they mean something else, and they look at me funny.

Maybe that's why I'm so lousy at poetry, and interpreting poetry. You can't take poetry at face value, not good poetry. Even with prose, the few classes I've taken on the subject overwhelm me with the analysis of All The Details and What They Really Mean.

I'm getting better at interpretation, but don't expect me to grasp the finer nuances.