Communication reduced

  

My husband Rick and I were driving into Geneva.

"Flowers?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered. 

We just had had a reduced conversation. What is that? 

It is when two people know the entire story without full explanations or even sentences.

In this case, the day before we had been discussing where we could buy flowers as a gift for someone we would be seeing in the city. We had discuss various places to buy them in terms of quality and convenience of location. When Rick had asked "flowers?" he was nearing the turn we would have to take to get to the place I needed to buy the flowers. He wanted to know before the turn if I still wanted them. 

When people, especially those who live together, often take communication short cuts or have codes. Full explanations aren't necessary.  My favorite example was with a roommate years ago.

Me: Esther called.

RM: Colon or period?

Me: Colon. 

Our other roommate was perplexed. We, however, knew that Esther was on the board of directors where I was communication director. She would phone me regularly whenever she saw something my department put out with a comment on punctuation.  

These short cuts don't always work. One or the other person's mind may be elsewhere when spoken to. If Rick came in after a dog walk and said, "snail" I would assume that there was another one on the patio. Still I would check. The only thing I could guarantee, he wasn't asking for snails as the evening appetizer.

And if there are misunderstandings, it's still a good feeling of being emotionally and informationally close to another human.