For the vast majority of people, though, communication is better.
Yes! I've done that too often, tiptoeing around things trying to game out all the possible ramifications. It's far better to simply try to:
* know your needs/desires
* communicate them
* ask about theirs
* handle the consequences
Even though it is straightforward, it may not be easy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication#Overv...
If it turns out they’re cool about it, what wonderful feedback for you about their reliability and understanding of you.
If it turns out they react badly, at least it’s feedback to ask yourself whether they’re worth that kind of trouble in the future.
If they’re passive aggressive about it - well, shame on them, and be very careful.
trying to predict how people feel without talking to them is baked into thousands of years of evolution, not just for humans, and a large amount of human communication is implied or non-verbal as well. It's hard to think it's that harmful given we've coevolved with it.
BTW, would you only take this approach with close friends/partners, or bosses/coworkers too?
when bumping into a stranger, assume best intentions, apologize or say something else appropriate and move on. who cares what they actually think or feel.
the closer the person is, the more communication is warranted.
Predicting how people feel is empathy, and that's great! But stopping there and assuming your predictions are correct without actually verifying them with the person first? That's harmful. You're not too busy anymore running from lions and hunting deer to stop and talk to a person before forming your ideas about them.
Also, when it comes to talking about things that happen in the mind, wouldn't hyperbolic assertions like "When you do X, you're actually robbing X" actually rob people of their own agency if the listener trusts the speaker as a legitimate authority?
"He's always talked about working more with his hands, I probably shouldn't forward him this desk job that'd otherwise be perfect for his career progression."
"She'd never date a loser like me."
Either way, their capacity to act (agency) remains intact.
The very important phrasing, in my estimation, can lead people to neurotically question their feelings less they "rob" someone of the capacity to act. In reality, a more lax quip such as "assuming makes an ass out of u-&-me" gives people more breathing room for their lapses in judgement.
to deprive of something due, expected, or desired
So to say you're "robbing someone of their agency" is the same as saying you're "depriving them of an opportunity to decide for themselves"
Or suppose you're single and there's an attractive acquaintance who is thinking of asking you on a date, but they overhear you talking to a friend about a date you had, and so they assume you wouldn't be interested. You don't want to make that decision yourself?
most of our problems today are coming from the fact that people are disempowered and lack the agency to improve the situation.
failure to reach consensus could threaten your relationship.
if my boss keeps making decisions for me then i'll eventually quit my job, because i am not willing to work like that. and if my partner does it then it will lead to a breakup and if it is something else, a judge might force a consensus on us.
"You look unhappy. You must be expecting me to do something, and now [ I'm frustrated because I don't know what you want from me | I'm anxious about meeting the possible expectations I imagine you might have ]."
If someone looks unhappy, it might not be because of you. Even if they do have a need that you could meet, they might not expect you to meet it. Instead of guessing, you could simply gently ask.
It isn't taking someone's choice. All someone has to do is speak up.
Additionally: I use they/them when I'm speaking about friends that are not mutual friends. Usually, gender doesn't enhance the story. Same when talking about my spouse in situations where I'm talking about myself being bisexual. People do not need to know what sort of genitals my spouse has, especially when it is because they want to see "how queer I am".
The way I try to work around this is to use "they" only when it would not sound grammatically unusual or confusing to do so, and otherwise rearrange the sentence to omit the pronoun.
As an example of the first, "That's their phone on the table" sounds natural because singular "their" is a lot more common than singular "they", and it's unambiguous because a phone is typically owned by an individual.
As an example of the second, "I met Bill yesterday and they went to the store with me" is odd because it sounds like "they" either doesn't agree with singular "Bill" or refers to some earlier plural antecedent, so I'd rephrase it "I met Bill yesterday and we went to the store together" or something like that.
There are unfortunately heck of a lot of people out there who (going by their actions) don't see denying people agency as a bad thing except when it is brought up as a standalone topic.
You may not even be wrong, but people have a right to choose how they feel about something, how something affects them, and the only way to know is to talk to them about it.
Attributing to someone a feeling or thought they themselves did not actually have is among the worst things you can reasonably do to someone on a daily basis without interacting with them at all.
I worry people don't quite realize how harmful this behavior is, or how often people do it.
The solution, as always, is to communicate. Just speak, using words, to the person you're inventing thoughts and feelings for. Often you've successfully detected something (we are social creatures, after all), but rarely are you right on the specifics.