What We Assume, and What We Miss

We are rather good at deciding who people are.

Sometimes remarkably quickly.

A few minutes in someone's company, a little observation, perhaps a conversation - or the absence of one - and we have already started putting together a story.

She's shy.

He's difficult.

That child is so well behaved.

She's not very sociable.

He doesn't seem interested.

And just like that, we think we know.

We rarely stop to consider how much of that story we have written ourselves.

A story with very little evidence

Someone doesn't speak much in a meeting.

We decide they have nothing to contribute.

Someone prefers to spend time alone.

We assume they must be lonely.

A child doesn't join an activity.

We decide they aren't interested.

Someone avoids eye contact, takes longer to answer or responds differently from what we expect.

We begin looking for an explanation.

Preferably one that fits neatly into something we already understand.

It's quite an impressive talent, really.

We can know very little about someone and still feel surprisingly confident about our conclusions.

But what if the quiet person has been listening carefully, noticing things the rest of us have missed?

What if the person sitting alone is perfectly content?

What if the child who doesn't join in is taking everything in, just in a different way?

And what if the person who seems uninterested simply hasn't been given a way to participate that works for them?

There are so many possibilities.

Yet we often settle for the first explanation that makes sense to us.

The comfort of being right

I think we like things we can understand.

We like predictable behaviour.

We like people who respond when expected, communicate in familiar ways and follow the unwritten rules that everyone is apparently supposed to know.

It makes life easier.

For us.

And perhaps that is where the problem begins.

Because when someone doesn't behave in the way we expect, we often question the person rather than our expectations.

Why won't they speak?

Why can't they join in?

Why are they so sensitive?

Why do they have to do things differently?

We don't always ask whether the situation itself could be different.

Whether we could give someone more time.

Whether there might be another way to communicate.

Whether our idea of normal is simply what we are used to.

It's much easier to describe someone as difficult than to consider that our approach might not work for them.

Not particularly flattering.

But rather convenient.

The people we don't really see

Some people are very good at being noticed.

They speak confidently, respond quickly and seem comfortable taking up space.

Others are less obvious.

They may be quiet, hesitant, thoughtful or simply different in the way they communicate.

Some cannot express themselves through words.

Some need time, familiarity, trust or support before we begin to understand them.

And some have no desire to perform for an audience at all.

None of this tells us how much they think, feel, understand or have to offer.

Yet the people who are easiest to understand are often the ones we believe we know best.

And those who don't fit our expectations can become almost invisible.

Not because there is nothing there to see.

But because we haven't learned how to look.

What if we are wrong?

This is the question I think we should ask ourselves more often.

What if the child we describe as good is simply very good at not causing us any trouble?

What if the colleague we call quiet has ideas they have never felt comfortable sharing?

What if the person we consider unfriendly is overwhelmed, anxious, tired or simply someone who doesn't enjoy small talk?

What if someone we've underestimated has a whole world of thoughts, interests, abilities and feelings we know absolutely nothing about?

And what if they don't need to change?

What if we just need to stop expecting everyone to show us who they are in exactly the same way?

Of course, we cannot know everything about another person.

We will misunderstand people sometimes.

We will make assumptions.

We are human.

But there is a difference between having an impression of someone and treating that impression as the whole truth.

A little less certainty. A little more curiosity.

Perhaps instead of deciding someone is shy, we could get to know them.

Instead of assuming someone isn't interested, we could offer another way to take part.

Instead of praising a child simply for being easy to manage, we could wonder how they are actually feeling.

And instead of asking why someone isn't more like everyone else, we could ask whether everyone else is really the standard they should be measured against.

We don't need to understand every person completely.

We don't even need to agree with everyone.

But we can leave room for the possibility that there is more to someone than we first noticed.

Because there usually is.

Beyond our first impressions

The stories we tell ourselves about other people are shaped by our experiences, expectations, preferences and sometimes our own discomfort with what we don't understand.

They may contain a little truth.

But they are rarely the whole story.

A quiet person is not an unfinished confident person.

A child who communicates differently is not a child with nothing to say.

Someone who doesn't fit our idea of normal is not necessarily someone who needs fixing.

People have their own personalities, their own ways of experiencing the world and their own worth.

Whether we recognise it or not.

Perhaps the next time we find ourselves thinking we know exactly what someone is like, we could leave a little space for being wrong.

We might discover something rather wonderful.

Or, at the very least, we might discover that the world doesn't revolve around our interpretation of it.

And that would be a good start.

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AS visible - You matter. Full stop.