Once upon a time there was a Lord and a Lady (well- she was a lady most of the time anyway) One day the Lord said “I’m not sure what to do about this situation. What is your opinion?” He told the lady the two choices before him, and gave the pertinent details and facts.

When the Lord finished, he looked at the lady and said “What do you think?”

And the lady responded quickly.  She rather decidedly gave her opinion, stating her reasons why unequivocally one choice was better than the other.  She did not hesitate and was quite strong in her reasons for one choice over the other. “Choice A” she said.

Of course, the Lord chose choice B.

Which made the Lady mad.  And she told this to the Lord.

The Lord and the Lady got into a disagreement, and trust me- this is where the term Lady was clearly a debatable choice of word. Lady slept on the couch that night because if she was closer to him she may have strangled him in his sleep.

The Lord said- “Didn’t you see I was leaning towards choice B? You’re supposed to know that.”

To which Lady replied “Then don’t present it to me as asking my opinion.  Tell me that’s what you want to do. If it means that much to you don’t give me an option.  You know I’m going to get mad if you ask my advice and then do the opposite of what I told you.”

Could the Lord and Lady have handled this situation better? Of course. We are always learning how to deal with others, how to communicate out wants and needs more effectively. And this is a never ending process.  No one is perfect at relationships, or compromise or communication.

So here’s the moral of this tale. If you are asking someone which road you should travel, ask yourself why you need to ask this question. Why do you need someone else’s support on something, especially if you know you are leaning 80% towards one direction? What are you really asking with questions like this?

FYI- My daughter just finished her section on Canterbury Tales, so I’ve been thinking of things from that perspective.  Just be glad I didn’t have time to do iambic pentameter or rhyming couplets…And be prepared: They just started “Hamlet”….

 

 

 

 

19 thoughts on “A Tale of the Opinion”

  2. I don’t know why people ask my opinion when they know i will probably choose differently. And then they get mad at me for not choosing what they want. If you dont want my true opinion dont ask for it. True story

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  4. Interesting topic. Why do people ask for opinions? Usually to get approval of their choice, or , conversely , to get someone to talk them out of what they really know they shouldn’t do, so also confirmation. But men aren’t always so insightful, are they?

    Like

    Reply

  6. I think most of the time people just want to hear justification of the choice they want to take. Some people like to do this as a way to avert blame. Like if I asked you if option A) sounded awesome, and you agreed — then if it all went tits up then I could say, “But no, LA said so. I’m not to blame!” sometimes people will genuinely be seeking answers, but if you’ve worked in the field of mental health as long as I have you’ll realise it’s just a way to either take comfort in the decision they will make, or scape goat you later, or both! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s