‘Askers’ vs ‘Guessers’

I heard about this on a podcast and have found it really helpful in understanding myself and reflecting on my historical actions and reactions to similar situations!

Broad Strokes:

ASKERS will make a request of someone in order to determine their next course of action. Thought (cognitive effort) is focussed on the response to the query, as the query is about gathering information to inform action.

GUESSERS will use their “knowledge” (assumptions) about someone and the context around their relationship and the request to inform their decision on whether or not to make a request. Thought (cognitive effort) is focussed on whether or not to make the query, and consequently they are unlikely to make to a request unless they “know” what the response will be.

The potential for miscommunication and disharmony here is pretty clear.

To askers, guessers may come across as secretive and scheming: rather than clearly communicating their needs, they are quietly reviewing past interactions (back to the rolodex!) in order make assumptions about the future actions of others.

Through the lens of an asker, guessers are being autocratic (i.e. they are removing the agency of others to be part of the process) because an asker wouldn’t make a decision without knowing the outcome of a request.

To guessers, askers may come across as rude and overbearing: rather than consider the impact that their request will have on others, they have the gall to simply ask (and, we assume, to expect compliance).

Through the lens of a guesser, askers are being demanding (i.e. they are forcing their needs on others under the assumption that they will be met, without considering what this will mean for others) because a guesser would not make a request if they didn’t already expect a favourable outcome.

What This Means For Me

I am undoubtedly a guesser: it once took me 6 months to ask Jay a question because I was calculating, recalculating, appraising, testing, reviewing, analysing… and then it took us 10 minutes to discuss it and reach a conclusion! As such, I can’t really speak to the “asker” side of things (though I’d love to hear your thoughts!), but there’s a few things that this has prompted me to consider.

Consider Biases & Ask More

My process of consideration is going to be coloured by my own biases: I have a negative self-image, I assume the needs of others are more important than my own, my perfectionism leads me to have very narrowly defined concepts of “success” (i.e. what constitutes a favourable outcome)… all of this is going to skew me away from asking, as it will make me more likely to determine that I won’t get a favourable outcome. 

Asking others is the perfect opportunity for me to “fact check” my internal story against others, particularly those I love and trust; not only am I allowing them agency (the right to say yes or no, or negotiate, on their own terms), as an added bonus I am allowing myself to gently realign my (somewhat twisted) worldview to a more balanced, shared reality.

Assume Less & Check-In With Myself

I tend to think that other people think in a similar way to me: as such, I assume everyone else is a guesser… which means I assume that they will only be asking me if they think that I will comply with their request. This is my people-pleasing kryptonite! The assertive part of me rankles with rage at being forced into compliance, and my resentment engine fires up... fine, I’ll do it, but I’m going to fucking hate it, and probably not be very pleasant in the process.

Also, at no point in this am I checking in with myself and what I actually want to to do: in my mind, the decision has already been made, and I’m angry about it without ever checking if maybe it’s something I actually… do want to do!

I need to take requests on their own terms, and not make assumptions about the thought that has gone into making the request, or the outcome that the other person has assumed (or whether they have assumed one at all!).

In Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations, you win a personalised spotify playlist!

As with any way of classifying ourselves and our behaviours, I don’t think these are camps that everyone easily fits into (we’re much too messy for that and, like many things, this is probably more of a spectrum, with our position mediated by context (interlocutor/s, mood, etc)), but I have found is a really useful measure by which I can better understand the mechanics of these interactions, and hopefully continue to work at addressing areas in which I engage in patterns of behaviour that do not serve me, or those around me.

I’d be really interested to hear others’ thoughts on this: do you feel like you fall into one camp or the other?

If you’re an asker, can you think of ways in which you have been perplexed by guessers?

If you’re guesser, does your experience align with mine, or do you have a different experience/interpretation?

The street is the most private place in the world.

Try it now:

Put your head between your hands

And loudly sigh;

The street is the most private place in the world.

Let out a sob,

Turn it into a moan:

Feel no eyes turned,

No hands upon your shoulders;

The street is the most private place in the world.

Try a wail;

No?

Maybe a howl.

Fall to your knees;

Give them a show!

Wail to god above and the devil below:

The street is the most private place in the world.

 

Turquoise and cerulean

Lapis lazuli and Prussian blue

The breath and gurgle of this royal beast.

It speaks into me

And I feel my blood match its hue

My voice, its timbre.

I dissolve into it

Or perhaps it dissolves into me.

I will ever be apart of this unity

Though it will ever be a part of me.

I have found a twin soul,

A solitude to match my own.

An immersive intimacy beyond the shores I call home.

Then, as my ancestors before me,

I return to the land

Partly lost, partly at ease.

The air fills me, familiar as a distant memory;

My blood crimson once more.

Already, looking back, I see danger,

The fear of being dashed against the rocks,

This vein of scarlet a reminder of my true heritage.

But I quiet my mind

And hear the echo in my soul.

The rocks be damned;

This is my home.

Night Air

 

Buffeted, she said:

Buffeted by the night air streaming through the car window.

Buffeted, she said:

Buffeted like wet laundry on a windy day;

Buffeted like a blanket of rage, of fatigue.

Buffeted, she said;

Buffeted.

Buffeted, she said:

Buffeted like a world that couldn’t get quiet enough;

Buffeted like a cat call in the street, like a sly press in the subway.

Buffeted, she said:

Buffeted like a memory of the last kiss from a lover, the last hug from a friend.

Buffeted like the regret of departure, the disappointment of arrival.

Buffeted, she said;

Buffeted.

Buffeted, she said:

Buffeted like your stomach after a meal, or a memory, eaten too fast;

Buffeted like your heart when the last train has departed, when the last memory of your grandmother has faded.

Buffeted, she said:

Buffeted by the night air, like it takes exception to your struggle.

Buffeted, she said:

Buffeted by the night air, like it’s yearned for your arrival.

Buffeted, she said.

Buffeted.

Cobweb

 When it had started, the cobwebs were simply a nuisance. The furtive brush of the hair and body when walking in the garden, hanging out the laundry, digging through the garage… You never saw the spiders but, really, when did you ever see the spiders? These flimsy, silken shacks: no wonder so many were left abandoned in their otherwise undisturbed corners.

But then they began appearing in places that made less sense: in her laundry (had it been sitting there that long?), her shoes, her cupboards (since yesterday?)… she cleared it out but it returned almost faster than she could remove it, never in quiet the same place. The wisps, ephemeral though they were, clung to her, followed her, appearing on one arm almost as soon as she had cleared the other.

The nuisance had become a vendetta, though on what side she could not be sure. And as the vendetta escalated, so too did the volume. She would open her closet to find, not a single shoe covered, but an entire rack; would open her pantry and find her food replaced with gauze. She reached into her pockets and found only the sticky white filaments; into her hair and… well, who could ever really tell the difference?

Soon her walls were barely visible behind the thickening mesh, the breezy halls now a dimly lit cocoon, her sanctuary now a thicket of gossamer.

The battle long since gone from her, she had to admit it was quiet here. Had the light not always been a little bright, the hustle and bustle little more than a din?

And somehow in the chaos, food had reappeared in her stores; small offerings left by her (still invisible)… captors? guests?

She stretched her legs and settled into her nest satisfied, she was sure, that there were worse prisons than this.

Void

The tear opens with the passive violence of a fault line. At opposite scales, the fault is apparent: the wound itself a mass. The skin, the earth, buckles and tears, obduction and subduction acting in perfect, violent union. This island chain, this aching, abyssal trench; this fear rising, this anger descending. 

How strange that, sunk, it will reunite with the churning mass; united in their homogeneity, their lineage dissolving in the convection and chaos. It will sink further then, one day, finally take its place again in the sun and air… the subduction-obduction-absolution pathway. But ever the churn and whirl below: there can be no satiety for the earth. To stop is to die; to consume is to play your hand at eternity.

And what is the soundtrack to the carnival? This one geological event that occurs on an all-too-human timescale? Under the deep rumbling of stone against stone: screams and whispers of rage and discontent. This inconvenience, this horror, from our one sanctuary in the inhospitable expanse.

So, too, my mind obducts and subducts and so, too, I rumble with rage and discontent. How can this sanctuary of flesh and blood and electricity act such betrayal upon me? The wound itself a mass, collapsing under the weight of betrayal and conceit; their natures lost, united in homogeneity.

I scream into the void: the darkness echoes with silence.

(Inspired by Rupi Kaur's Healing Through Words (2022, Simon & Schuster))

As she closed the door, it stuck (just as it had for the last 2 years, despite her asking for it to be fixed) and, with a sigh, she realised that this would be the last time that she would be disappointed by this place.

She pushed it back open, and took one final look: the faded carpet, the worn couch, the peeling Lino in the kitchen, the too-small table jammed in the too-small room… how had she made a home here for so long? She had scraped together the scraps of hope around her: perhaps the couch, like her heart, wasn’t so worn; perhaps the carpet, like her joy, wasn’t so faded?

Looking back now, they all spoke their truth volubly: there could be no home here. It had never truly been the fixtures: she saw now that they were some small comfort, rocks of stability in an ever-changing stream of misfortune and regret; and she, on the banks, variously parched and drowned, feeling her spirit slowly chewed away by insects and spite.

Yet each day, she had surfaced; she had brushed off the insects and tended her wounds (waking early, quietly), painted on the boldest lies she could bear, and tried again. She cleaned and cooked, and smiled and worked, and hid her distain behind gestures and pantomime. She knew this her, the Outside Her, was well-liked, and she despised Her for it. But she knew this suit was her safety, a fixture of stability as the couch and carpet, the Lino and table, so she held her enemy tightly.

Until one day, she realised that, if she let go, her tattered spirit could be lifted by the lightest breeze: somehow, cruelty and injury could be the agents of her freedom.

It was a thought at once foreign and completely at home. She woke even earlier now: to take it out, to play with it, to stretch and squeeze it, then swiftly hide away as the hour became too late. As the days wore on, though, she felt it still in her hands: small flecks caught between her fingers and under her nails. She was thankful, for the first time, for Her, for now She was a new safety, protecting this small, new hope.

And this morning, when she had taken it out, she knew she would no longer be able to hide it away. It flowed from her hands, covering wherever She had usually been, and she realised that she did not feel safe; she felt bold.

She turned away and pulled the door closed (in a final mercy, it did not stick), and walked off into the night.