Soooo true!

I'm reading a book that was recommended by a friend and I'm loving it. Honestly, two of the things that I find the most interesting in life are relationships between men & women, and psychology. When you put the two together, I just love reading and talking about it because its so fascinating, so life-applicable, and so enlightening. Usually, when I read stuff like this, I've experienced what they're talking about, but I'd never been able to put it in quite those terms...

This book is called You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen, PhD. And I just had to post this paragraph because its soooo true and sooo central to communication in every relationship:

"Much - even most - meaning in conversation does not reside in the words spoken at all, but is filled in by the person listening. Each of us decides whether we think others are speaking in the spirit of differing status or symmetrical connection. The likelihood that individuals will tend to interpret someone else's words as one or the other depends more on the hearer's own focus, concerns and habits than on the spirit in which the words were intended." p. 37