Why are some people not able to communicate with one another?

Answer 1

For me; it is the fear of being misunderstood.

Answer 2

Hi.
I think draicon replied to you quite well though I will give my own answer. You know people are different and some people are afraid of being rejected or being wrong. That's a main problem.
Some people are afraid of conflicts. This problem also has to deal with lack of confidence. I know this problem personally and some people would think the way I communicate is insufficient because I am not as open as they are. I don't tell anyone everything about me.
Insufficient communication may be bad for the person who wants to know more but it is even worse for the person who has this problem.
You know those people who are confident and have high-self confidence they share with other people more about themselves and they are brave and they are loud, and those who have lack of self-confidence they are shy.

Answer 3

I think that many people did not learn good communication skills as a child - maybe their parents did not communicate well. I also think that schooling doesn't really help to teach good communication skills. Perhaps good writing skills, but not talking to each other. There are many options to learning good communication skills, but many people don't use them. Or, perhaps they are not interested in communicating well. some people who don't communicate well have no respect for themselves or for others. It takes alot of work to communicate well and some people just don't bother.

Answer 4

Because of a feeling of being rejected or of being wrong.
Some people never grow up learning healthy social skills which leaves them vulnerable as adults.
Take you time with them, all great things are worth fighting for and waiting for

Answer 5

What do you mean? LOL...

Language is shorthand for thoughts. The problem arises when the thoughts are so different that the shorthand takes on very different meanings. Language is limited, very limited, so few people actually think with just words. They may use words as a type of container for thoughts, but realistically it's merely a means to describe the thought, not the oriigion or the thought itself.

The second problem stems from how we view the world. We see all of the world through our own eyes. They are after all the only set we have. It is very difficult to step into another person's shoes even for a short time. People like to say they do it, but they are only changing where they look from not the set of eyes they gaze out with.

What you see is NOT merely reflected into brain waves. Long before you ever see a photon the brain is working on interpeting those images. Things are added and subtracted. Same with all the other senses. We literally create a great deal of the world around us because we add emotional, historical and sensory experience to what our senses report. You touch a leather couch. You may not feel the couch literally, you may feel the other leather couches you've felt before because this one doesn't feel exactly right. To give you consistancy and a frame of reference your mind calls it close enough then substitutes what you expect to feel unless there are major differences. Then you are drawn to the differences to analyze them on a higher level IF the feel of a couch is high on your priorities that given moment. If you are worrying about an IRS audit the odds are the leather couch could have nails protruding from the back and you wouldn't notice unless they drew blood.

That is one of the common communication issues. Men as a group pay less attention to many aspects of their environment and vice versa. A man is more likely to notice a sound in a car engine than whether the shade of curtains in the room changed.

Every time we log a new experience it colors all of our new dealings with anything that resembles that experience. Frequently we actually substitute memory for actual sensory input. If it's close enough it's close enough and it keeps us from sensory overload. We do this on a more complex level also. Areas like language for example. That is how a phrase becomes far more than the individual words that it is built of. If I said Uncle Joe was off his rocker you'd imediately substitute concepts of insane or eccentric behavior even if you didn't know uncle Joe. The phrase first means that the behavior was erratic. Then from context you can often deduce that the behavior was chronic or just an event. This leads you to open the file called insane behavior where you would compare it with other such behavior you've encountered in the past. Like the couch, if it was close enough you'd dismiss the details and substitute memory, noting only an attachment to Uncle Joe in the Insanity file and possible an ancedote about Uncle Joe's behavior.

For most things this works fine. You don't have to understand the undertones. If Uncle Joe is your distant relitive, unless you actually plan to converse with Uncle Joe or otherwise interact who cares if you understand the finer meanings that somebody was attempting to impart to you. When it comes to a man and a woman living together. That is where you see some of the best examples of this comunication breaking down. The language is understood but the finer meanings are lost. In intimate relationships, friendships, some work environments, stressful situations you find other examples where language is not sufficient.

On a team for example, if it's a team with lots of time together often that team can interact beyond what language is capable of. Friends can understand that when somebody says their parakeet died that it was more than just a bird that died. They understand some of the deeper meanings behind that because of common experience and a common outlook on something.

That commonality produces expectations. A person can say xyz to another with a common outlook on xyz and be understood mostly in the way that was expected. Somebody with a different viewpoint is going to understand xyz at a top level. They know the meaning of the words as they are used in the dictionary. They also apply their own experience and priorities to those words.

A common example is one spouse being offended by the other when something of great importance to them is blown off by the other. The failure to communicate the importance of the event/item/whatever the conflict arises from often assumes and implied understanding by the other. It assumes a common outlook where one may not exist.

Another great example is dealings between cultures. Many Native tribes had no concept meaning dishonesty. Europeans had centuries of experience with it. When we try to project our concepts, meanings and morals onto another culture it is a quick route to conflict. We forget how much we as a culture have changed over time. For example it was common in many parts of the world to execute every soul in captured territory that was not enslaved. To us that would seem barbaric and repulsive here in the West. To the people of the time it was normal. Less than 100 years ago it was common family entertainment to go out and watch an execution. Families would bring a picnic lunch and make a day of it. Today many are opposed to them happening at all.

So in reality Language is as much a barrier as it is a means of commnication. Each language has concepts not found in other languages that are hard to translate. It has phrases that often have no equivalent in other languages. For many people language actually molds thought with it's limitations. In implication in a language that a substance is unbreakable will lead many to never question whether this is true. It is the bedrock of our understanding and embedded in our language. The validity of the concept might be completely incorrect. The culture will flavor the words, give them subtle secondary meanings and implications that far exceed the dictionary deffinition.

The other bedrock is our experience. Language is our only real means to share experience with others without having to actually be there. The phrase "you had to be there" is an excellent demonstration of that. It also illustrates a situation that defies language in communicating all the subtle parts of an event(s).

People who are best at stepping into other people's viewpoints, understanding the unspoken parts of a person's speech, those who are more situationally aware of other's perspectives and those who have wider outlooks and reservoirs of experience are better able to understand others. Many of these same traits can make a good communicator. The best communications happen between a good comunicator and a good listener. A rare combination. Both good communicators and listeners are rare. Even rarer is a person that is good at both. Many politicians can do a very good job of expressing a viewpoint. Traditionally they are very poor listeners.

There are things that can improve this situation. Listening has distinct skill areas that can be improved on by everybody. Mostly though being better at listening and communicating means broadening experience. It means being less selfish and giving other people's words a higher priority. Most communication gaps are two sided. Both sides failing to understand the other. Often if there is a gap it's not getting solved unless both attempt it. You can be the greatest communicator in the world and not get a point across if the audience isn't listening. You can also be a great listener but that does you no good if there is no meaning to the stream of words bombarding you or the silence which might or might not mean something. (No ladies, guys often naturally don't say anything and it doesn't mean anything good or bad when they are not speaking)

Well hope this helped you understand why some people have difficulty. It might be a lack of experience. Lack of confidence which is usually really lack of experience, it might be they ARE saying something but in ways most people are not understanding. When it all boils down, few of us are very good at communication. Some people are especially bad at it. Most of the time it's not that people in numbers 2 or more are not bad at communication but that it is really a difference in perspective and assumptions that cause the communication gap. Might be cultural, might be background, might be train of thought at the moment. A person inventing a way to feed the world might hear words but the impact will not register. So the timing of the communications is also important.

Answer 6

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