Do you have trouble trying to understand certain people?

I hope it isn’t the bot responding to you.

It’s a bot.

We all have trouble understanding someone, time to time. I would suggest you be direct with this person and explain you are having difficulty understanding what they are saying and if perhaps they can clear up any misconceptions.
I find people often don’t want to do this because they fear embarrassing the other person or appearing dumb, ignorant, or foolish.
I say it’s better to appear dumb, ignorant, or foolish than to actually be so by believing your misconceptions are correct. Or treating the other person like they are dumb, stupid or foolish because they didn’t get their message across correctly.

I’ve been misunderstood a few times on fluther and when someone would ask me to clarify my point or interpreted what I wrote incorrectly, I would find it was either my era because I practically sleep posted (when you are too tired and your brain is functioning at 20 %), or typos of certain words changed the idea of what I meant to post.
Ask them to clarify.

@elbanditoroso I don’t think so but I could be wrong.

Don’t answer anything you are uncomfortable with. You can ask a moderator about the user and they can investigate if it’s a bot or troll.

I think I know what you’re referring to and I think some Jellies are often unclear in what they are asking or saying. If so, it’s not you.

Thank you, I do have someone looking into this now.

I think there may be regional differences in speech, in the way things are phrased and that can be confusing. For example, @JLeslie and I grew up in the same area, and sometimes she will phrase things in such a way that nobody else here does, but I might. I notice that’s a regional way to phrase certain things.

@jca2 I always kinda wondered how I sound to others. My family and I went on a vacation (on holiday for our European users lol ) to Miami a year ago and someone there said I had an accent and I thought what the heck, haha.

It is of course relative. And the issue of whether or not he(?) is a bot isn’t your question. The answer is of course there are people (or bots) with whom I am incapable of getting my ideas across. The question as to which of us is responsible is one of those unanswerable questions philosophers have wrestled with probably since the advent of communication and arrival of philosophy as a means to understanding it all.

I know I could simply ignore him/her but I don’t work that way. I try to respect everyone because everyone is valid and we are all human. I just feel bad that I can’t understand as much as I want to.

Would you feel bad if your respondent were not a person?

@HP well that would make a difference if it was just a robot but it may still make me feel uneasy talking to something like that. It isn’t fair to have a bot toy with my feelings like that :(

You’re a friendly person, specifically to some people whose responses the rest of us may not appreciate as humor or well-mannered. Friendliness may encourage some people. ;)

Communication is a two-party function: the sender and the receiver. Some people are good communicators from a sending perspective, others are not. The reasons vary but when they are sending a message it may not be clear. Maybe they can’t put their own thoughts into words efficiently, maybe English is not their native language, etc. It might be that their thoughts are just so foreign to you that you cannot comprehend what is being said.

You will never fully understand everyone. Don’t let it get you down. When in doubt, ask questions. If you still can’t understand, politely say you don’t and move on.

@smudges I just treat others as I would like to be treated. Sometimes I feel that a hug and sympathetic ear or shoulder for support is all a person needs to help them and you out. I believe there is good in everyone if given the right chance and opportunity:)

For your specific issue, my advice is to ignore them. There is nothing good from understanding them. If anything, they want you to understand them so that they can do some nasty brainwashing to you.

Some people are just not meant for us to be close to. It’s better for us to find someone we can actually connect with and love.

@RayaHope I just treat others as I would like to be treated.

I do too, but with age and painful experiences, I’ve learned to temper my compassion with wisdom. We have to in order to protect ourselves from needless pain, evil people, and users. Unfortunately, wisdom comes from experience. This is addressing life in general, not necessarily your specific issue.

I used to have trouble understanding a boss I used to work for. She mumbled a lot and I would try to read her lips, but that wasn’t easy to do either.
I would just repeat back what I thought she had said and it pretty much worked out.

@smudges I know I have much to learn and I don’t yet harness the experience but I still have much love for the people in my life and I’m sure that others feel the same. What would we be if not for others?

@chyna I had a teacher like that once. I even asked to sit up front close to his desk so I could understand him better. Even that didn’t always work.

I’m hard of hearing, so a thick accent can be just BRUTAL for me to decipher. I work with alot of recent immigrants in my job, and some I really struggle to understand. Worse yet, many of them are very soft-spoken…so I’m already struggling to understand, and they speak like we’re in a library.

Fortunately, since covid, we’re full time telework, and alot of my interactions with them are over a chat app, so… that’s made my life easier.