Background
A recent conversation, and simple misunderstanding, made me out to be a horrible, heartless murderer.
My wife and I lived near Chicago with our three children, aged 12, 10, and 8.
We also had a dog and a cat and we had recently lost another cat at the age of 16.
We were attending a summertime Chicago wedding, making rounds and catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in a while.
One particular old friend walked up – we’ll call him John. I hadn’t seen John in a few years, but we had several friends in common, so we weren’t strangers.
The Misunderstanding
We had a quick handshake and hug (this was pre-COVID). Then John jumped in with “How are your cats?” This caught me a bit off-guard for a few reasons:
- John didn’t strike me as a cat lover. But how much can I really tell about whether someone is a cat lover just by looking at them? So I let that go.
- I couldn’t recall a time John had seen our cats. Two of his brothers had been to our house several years ago, but the cats weren’t even in the house at the time. I brushed this off and figured he probably saw something about our cats on Facebook.
- Asking about our cats just seemed like a strange conversation starter.
“How are your cats?”
I corrected him by saying we were down to one. John looked a little puzzled and concerned at this. Looking at his body language, I thought “wow, he seems really concerned about our cat’s passing.” I figured he was either a huge cat lover or I’d forgotten about a time he visited us and saw our cats.
I explained how we had to recently put one down after a couple years of battling health issues. His brother was still with us and while he was starting to have some health issues as well, he was doing pretty good.
At this, John’s face contorted into a pained expression and I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his skull.
I was shocked! We felt very badly about putting the cat down. Our pets ARE a part of our family. But John was starting to make me feel horrible. It seemed his attitude was to put an animal down, for any reason, was beyond belief.
The AHA Moment
I began replaying our conversation in my head, thinking I must have said something wrong because this reaction from John was not right. Then something clicked for me. John didn’t ask “How are your kitties?” In reality he had asked, “How are your kiddies?”
Essentially, John thought we had put one of our children “down” due to some “health issues.” Suddenly his reactions made perfect sense to me. I was incredibly grateful I caught this miscommunication before we parted ways with John.
Takeaways
Miscommunication is easy. Here was an acquaintance – we both lived near Chicago, we both spoke English fluently, and we were speaking face to face. Look at the horrendous misunderstanding we had! This has caused me to be extra careful in my communication, especially if I’m speaking with someone from a different location/culture/language/etc. or if I’m communicating in writing.
So what happened with John? I brought him up to speed on the situation with our kids and cats. He didn’t care so much about our cats.