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by AnimalMuppet 3741 days ago
Many of us write to communicate facts. When we read, we expect the writer to be doing that, too. We get frustrated if they take far too long to deliver on too little payload of facts.

But sometimes other people write to communicate feelings, not facts. Sometimes I see this in my marriage. My wife says something, and my reaction is, "So?" But she wanted me to share in the experience, not just to know something. If I listen just for facts, I miss what she's trying to tell me.

Now, for those of us who are fact-oriented, it gets annoying to have people talking to us the "wrong" way (i.e., not our style) all the time. But we need to be able to learn to handle the other style, at least at the level of a somewhat-fluent foreign language. (I say so, who does not do very well at this...)