There have been times when I’ve gotten a kick out of two people talking at cross purposes to each other. You know, they make comedy skits out of this stuff. You think you’re both talking about the same thing but you’re not or you think you’re talking about something completely different and it ends up being the same thing. Then there are the conversations that are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are meant to look innocent but in actuality they are designed to get us to do something or to stop doing something. Parents use this technique all the time. How to get a kid to stop doing a thing and do something else is to distract them. The words spoken really aren’t the point, they are a means to an end.
Manipulative relationships rely on these things and actually thrive on them. One side thinks the question is actually a question and tries to answer it and can’t understand why they are having this same conversation for 152nd time. I mean, the questioner doesn’t seem to have problems understanding these things at any other time or with any other person so why are they as dumb as a stump over this? The answer being that they aren’t, but the question works to get them what they want, you being busy answering the question, not paying attention to anything else and now emotionally involved in the answer and the subject while they do something else with their time.
In this year of the goat, one of the things that will become evident is the challenge to read the meaning underneath the message. The actions of the person can help us understand that not just the words but the entire conversation is not what it seems. Once we see the wolf under the sheepskin we are better able to take appropriate action.
