Sound Bites

You have not been listening. You have been collecting evidence for the model you already built.

The model was built from three bad days, two overheard comments, and a version of them somebody else described when they were annoyed. You added some interpretation. You filled in the gaps with your own theory of what kind of person does what they do. You closed the file.

This is not knowing someone. This is a shortcut to knowing them.

Most people do this constantly. They build a working caricature of a coworker, a neighbor, a sibling, a partner — and then they treat the caricature like the person. They forget the caricature is theirs, not the person’s. They forget they built it on incomplete data. They forget the version they are interacting with lives only inside their own head.

The cost is small at first. Then it compounds.

A coworker becomes “the difficult one.” A friend becomes “the flaky one.” A sibling becomes “the one who never shows up.” A spouse becomes “the one who does that thing.” Once the label is set, every new piece of information gets filed into the existing folder. The folder gets thicker. The person disappears inside it.

The harder a person is to characterize, the more honestly you are seeing them.

You have not seen them in years. You have only seen the model you built.

This is risky because it feels like understanding. It feels like efficiency. It feels like you have the person figured out, when what you have is a sketch you drew from across the room.

This is risky because it feels like understanding. It feels like efficiency. It feels like you have the person figured out, when what you have is a sketch you drew from across the room.

Real knowledge of another person is expensive. It costs time. It costs presence. It costs the willingness to be surprised by someone you thought you had figured out. It costs the humility to update the file when the evidence does not fit.

Most people will not pay that price. So they pay the other one — division at work, distance with friends, slow drift in the marriage.

Do the harder work.

Before you decide who someone is, ask whether you have actually invested in knowing them. Notice the gap between what you know and what you have inferred. Hold the inference loosely. Stay willing to be wrong.

The people you love deserve more than the cartoon of them you carry around in your head.

So do the people you do not love. They are not actually who you think they are either.

“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” — Anaïs Nin