“Are You Ordering Pasta You Don’t Want?”
By Sam Horn, Author, Teacher, Mentor
I attended a UN summit a few years ago this week and got to have dinner with my son Andrew. I’d been eating healthier, so he made a reservation at one of New York’s top-rated vegan restaurants.
He texted he was running late and suggested I go ahead and order.
I looked over the menu. Uh-oh. It was tofu here, succotash there, broccoli everywhere. I understood this place was a goldmine to vegans, however, I usually head the other direction at the first sight of peas and their brethren.
The only thing I saw on the menu I thought I could get down was linguine, so I ordered that for me and the special for Andrew.
Andrew arrived just as our food was delivered. He took one look at the steaming pile of linguine in front of me and said, “Mom, I thought you’re not eating pasta.”
“I’m not.”
Double-take. “Then, why did you order the pasta?”
“Andrew, it’s no big deal.”
He looked at me in consternation, “Mom, it IS a big deal. You say you’re not eating pasta, but you just ordered pasta. I don’t get it.”
I tried to brush this aside so we could get caught up. “Andrew, I only have a couple hours before I need to catch the train to DC. Let’s just have our meal.”
He persisted, “I don’t understand. Why did you order something you didn’t want?”
I could see he wasn’t going to let this go (good for him) so I explained my logic. “We haven’t seen each other for awhile, and only have a little bit of time. I wanted to focus on our conversation, so I ordered the only thing I thought I could eat.”
He said, “Mom, do you know what a mixed message that sends?”
Wow. I never thought of it that way.
What’s worse is, in that moment, I realized I’d been doing this most of my life.
Instead of “telling my truth” and saying what I really want, need, think or feel – my default is to do what I hope will contribute to a peaceful, positive outcome.
I do this with what I think are good intentions, “Andrew’s gone out of his way to book a table at a special restaurant. I don’t want to ‘ruin’ the evening and hurt his feelings, so I won’t make an issue of this.”
The thing is, I AM making an issue of it.
If we never say what we truly want, think, or need, people feel they have to second guess everything we say because they intuit we’re not “telling the truth.”
Like Andrew, they sense we’re doing something contrary to what we really want.
We’re doing or saying this to make them happy.
And that’s not what they want. They want us to be happy too.
When we hide our truth, we end up creating dissonance and confusing people … and no one is happy.
Oh, what tangled webs we weave.
Thank heaven Andrew got to the heart of the matter.
He asked, “Mom, what do you really want for dinner?”
This time, I told the truth, “A steak.”
He said, “We can do that.”
He asked our waiter to package up our meals and we headed to a grocery store a block away. I bought some pre-cooked steak in the deli. He got a salad. We walked to a nearby park, sat outside under a full moon and swapped updates.
And we ended up with what we both wanted in the first place … connection.
How about you?
Are you sometimes reluctant to tell the truth because you think it might anger, offend, or hurt someone?
Are you honoring other people needs, wishes, priorities at the cost of your own?
Do you, with the best of intentions, defer to what you think other people might want because you want them to be happy?
Do you realize what a mixed message that sends?
Do you understand it actually works better for all involved when we share our truth and ask for what we want – clearly, simply, and from the start?
Telling the truth isn’t selfish, it’s straightforward.
Please note; I’m not suggesting we brutally share our truth without regard to its impact or consequences.
In my Talking on Eggshells book, I share a variety of ways to diplomatically and proactively share our truth so it’s a win for all involved.
Want good news?
As a result of that dinner, “Are you ordering pasta you don’t want?” has become kind of our family code for “Are you saying what you think I want, need, or feel – or are you telling your truth and sharing what you want, need, and feel?”
Kerry Patterson says, “The mistake most of us make is we believe we have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend.”
As Kerry points out, compassionately telling the truth doesn’t “lose a friend,” it leads to clearer communication where no one has to read between the lines.
And isn’t that what we all want?