Three Sides to Every Story

As the saying goes, there are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth.

I was reminded of this old adage while watching one of those countless reality television shows starring supposed “ordinary” people living out-of-the-ordinary lives which seem to involve an awful lot of catty fighting.

This particular episode offered an interesting opportunity to view an actual argument and then to get each participant’s viewpoint on what happened and what was said. As I watched each woman misquote their adversary and also themselves, draw conclusions about the other’s thoughts and intentions, and broadly label the other’s whole personality based on this one exchange (“juvenile”, “conceited”, “self-centered”, “insane”), I realized why there is so much misunderstanding in the world.

And then I wondered how often I have ascribed unintentional meaning to a statement spoken to me, how many times I have exaggerated details or tone when repeating stories of conflict to my friends, how many words I have misquoted to reflect what I heard more than what may have actually been said. I know I have the habit of saying, “I can’t remember the exact words, but the gist was…..” How often may the actual words have revealed a different intent than the “gist” I got?

They are hardly intentional, these misquotes and false assumptions, but if you think about it, it’s not very surprising that they occur. For one thing, in the heat of battle, our emotions are heightened and our natural instinct is to defend, so we may detect weapons when there are none.

Additionally, our expectations of how people will treat us can shape our view of how they actually do treat us, be they strangers or colleagues, siblings or spouses, best friends or worst enemies. How many of us can laugh off a personal comment made by a close friend (“they know us so well”), while the same comment may be viewed as a personal attack by a competitive colleague (“How dare they say that!”)? Who hasn’t noticed that on days when we’re feeling happy, we are less bothered by the attitudes of those with whom we interact along the way?

The women in the aforementioned television show had earlier concluded that they weren’t on the same wavelength and were never going to be friends, and so their every interaction contributed to the prevention of a friendship.

Finally, when we repeat our exchange to another uninvolved (though perhaps not unbiased) party, we are usually asking for confirmation of our assumptions, agreement with our conclusions, and empathy towards our reactions. So maybe we overstate the venomous tone of our opponent’s voice, or the nastiness of the words, or the frightening volume (not to mention intent that is up for interpretation in email correspondence, where tone is distinguished primarily by capitalization which can symbolize anger, emphasis, importance, or maybe just sloppy typing). And maybe we understate our own – just a bit.

It is possible to keep miscommunications from ruining our relationships if desired. We just have to double-check our conclusions. When we find ourselves reacting negatively to something said to us, we should stop and think about what may be causing the reaction. Did they really mean what we heard? Are we making assumptions about what they said or why they said it that may not be true? Might they be under stress or have some misinformation that is causing them to react with an overabundance of emotion? The only way we can know for sure is to ask. The question can be as simple as, “Excuse me, what did you say?” Or it can be more complex, like “It sounds like you said this. Is that what you meant?” It is only after we know that we have understood each other that we can respond fairly. (Of course, we can still over- or under-react, but at least we know we are reacting to the right input.)

We may never truly eliminate the third side of the story – that’s part of the nature of human interaction – but maybe we can achieve a little more overlap and a lot more understanding.