Graciousness 5: Just Answer The Question

(A continuation of the series Graciousness 1-4, March 24-April 21, 2009)

The other day I caught myself doing something I hate, though oddly I can't remember exactly what it was. But I remember the gist well enough to write this as a rebuke to myself and as a warning to you to avoid my mistake.

What happened was my wife asked me a question and I answered it - or thought I did. The question and the answer are gone from my memory. It was something very simple like, "Do you know if it is going to rain today?" and I answered something like, "I left the umbrella in the car." That is, instead of answering her question, I intuited a reason behind it, and responded to that. You're asking about rain because you want to know where I put the umbrella. But I was wrong - she was asking for some other reason. If I had simply told her "Yes, it's supposed to rain," or, "No, I think it's supposed to be sunny," then it would have saved her the bother of asking a follow-up question or having to explain her motive.

Some time ago I began to notice that rude, hostile, arrogant, or passive-aggressive people almost never give simple answers to simple questions. Instead they use other people's questions as opportunities to take offense, give offense, show off, demean, express irritation, or heap scorn. Often they will "read the mind" of the questioner in order to tell him what they think he really needed to know. Don't be like that. Let your replies to simple, straightforward questions be simple and straightforward. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

(Of course, it goes without saying that some questions actually expect you to intuit the reason for them. If someone asks, "Do you know where the restroom is?" it would be rude to say "Yes" and leave it at that. I'm not talking about those kinds of things.)

One of my least favorite non-answers is, "You already asked me that!" This is an especially cruel thing to say to an elderly person, or to anyone who fears that his mind or memory are unstable. Yes, I may have asked you before. Please just tell me again as though I were asking you for the first time. It hurts to be reminded that I can't hold on to thoughts the way I used to.

Perhaps you know someone (Lord love you if you are married to one of these!) who responds to a question like, "What time is it?" with

- "You asked me that 10 minutes ago."
- "Is your watch broken?"
- [Silence. She heard you, but is pretending not to.]
- "It doesn't matter if we're late."
- "I thought you got a watch for Christmas."
- "Why do you always have to be so concerned about the time?"
- "They're already closed."

Etcetera. If you ever catch yourself responding like that, stop, repent, and say (in a pleasant tone of voice), "It's 7:15."

To this day I can recall the horror I felt in sixth grade when poor Ricky, a classmate, asked the teacher why, if the sun was a star, we didn't see it at night with the other stars. Rather than answering simply, Mr. Rossi sighed loudly and ridiculed him for asking such a stupid question. He brought Ricky up in front of the class, stood him in front of a globe and spoke in exasperated tones that brought tears to Ricky's eyes and laughter from the class. I believe Ricky learned the lesson, "If confused, don't ask Mr. Rossi."

Be the kind of person who gives such simple and gracious answers that people feel comfortable asking you anything.