Perceptions

Everyone sees the world as he is. Even when I 'step into other man's shoes', I'll still think the way I do, and there's no way in the world I can ever think someone else's way.

When I look at other person and try to see things through his perspective, or when I react to his behaviour keeping in mind his personality, however much I school myself to see things his way, I'll still be doing things my own way.

I am a person who keeps to myself. Who expresses a lot through actions, body language, tone, way of doing things. Who concises his speech so as to convey max through a layer of meanings by judicious use of words. When the other person says no, I'll interpret the no in my way. I'll try to decipher the no, because thats how I speak: layering the words with multiple meanings and inferences. I'll draw the inferences, the ones which I'd have conveyed if I were saying no in the given situation. The other person gives me a gift. The way I've grown up and groomed, the atmosphere and culture I've been brought up in, giving gift in that particular situation might mean something and I'll fix that something as the other person's intentions.

The no could simply have been that, a plain vanilla no. Without any future implications and past references. Without any inbuilt meanings and inherent inferences. A no can always simply be a no and nothing more. But thats not how I think and so I cannot on my own realise which one of the no's is plain vanilla and which a paraphrase for a whole lot of talk. When its me who interprets the no, it simply won't occur to me that it can be nothing more than what it is.

The gift might be just that, an impulsive gift, with nothing more to read into the gesture. A small momentary pleasure for the giver. But since I have never had anything to do with impulse I'll try to connect it with reason. I'll think up all sorts of reasons for that gift. I'll react based on what I perceive is the actual reason. If I cant zero in on one, if I get confused as to what its all about and cant make up my mind, god save me. Because thats a hell of a situation for me and simply sinks my confidence to an abysmal depth.

On the other hand, I am a person who speaks his mind. Has no hidden agendas and prefer the vanillas all the way in life. When I am happy I smile. When I don't like I let it show on my face, and even prefer to let the other person know, not in an implied manner through my gestures, but up front, in clear words, leaving no place for any confusions or need for deductions to be made and inferences to be drawn on the part of other person. When I say no to something, I do not cover any implicit things in that no. So when someone says no to me, it would mean a straightforward no to me. The other person may have implied that he needs a little persuasion. Or that he needs to be pampered. Or that the no is not limited for this occasion but would cover all future events as well. I simply become a dumb head in this regard because I'd not even know that I have to assume things before interpreting what other person says. I'll react to the no based on how i do things - take it to be a plain vanilla one time no.

The gift I receive would never convey to me anything more than what it is, because I myself would never have expected my gift to be self-explanatory. If I were gifting with a purpose in my mind, I'd explicitly speak out the purpose as well. Assumptions is simply not my way. So when I get a gift, there's no force in the world to inform me that the gift has a purpose attached to it which I'm supposed to know. My reply to the gift will solely be a reply to a gift. If the other person expected me to understand deeper meanings, god help him and and help me too. Because I'm gonna lose so many valuable relationships simply because I keep things simple and straight.

Even if I try to step into the shoes of the person saying no or giving a gift, and try to think things out his way, what I'm ultimately doing is thinking what I'd have done and why. Thats what we all do every time we think about others, in all given situations. And what we infer this way is also mostly incorrect, for faced such situation ourselves, we end up behaving totally differently.