I’ve been thinking lately about the way we communicate our needs. I’ve had to make some requests at work recently that started this train of thought, and then, the other day, I saw a friend share a post on Facebook that I’ve seen before about “Ask Culture” vs. “Guess Culture,” and it re-ignited this rumination on what it means to ask things of others. For those not acquainted, “culture” is functioning here as a set of politeness rules coming from upbringing or personality. In Ask Culture, it’s considered polite to ask for whatever you need and accept no as an answer, whereas in Guess Culture, it’s more polite to get a sense of whether a yes or no is the likely answer for a request, and to only ask if a yes is the expected response.
I’ve seen discussions around this phenomenon crop up through the years, particularly as someone who has spent time on Tumblr. I think it’s a fascinating framework through which to view interactions, much like conversations about how you approach affection or small talk. However, the places these conversations tended to land was that Ask Culture was the superior method and Guess Culture was passive aggressive. After all, you should ask directly for what you want, not drop increasingly elaborate hints like some kind of bridge troll doling out riddles.
When I first encountered these conversations, I remember feeling discouraged by how disparaging they were towards Guess Culture. To me, slowly feeling out people’s comfort levels and going based on others’ cues felt like a safety net in a world filled with intimidating social interactions. It felt particularly important in friendships. I had experienced what a delicate balance it was to find your place in a group of people—you had to be friendly, show interest, but you couldn’t accidentally invite yourself where you weren’t wanted, as I discovered at a pool party as a thirteen-year old.
Seeing people treat the act of gathering information before making requests as passive aggression felt like a misunderstanding. If you’re not close with someone, it can feel intimidating to directly request something, especially if you don’t know what your options are. One common example might be stating an experience without attaching a request—for instance, visiting a friend’s home and saying, “Brrr, I’m cold.” I think very direct people tend to read that as passive aggression, like I’m hinting at wanting a blanket but refusing to ask outright. For me, though, it’s more of a bid for information: I’m cold, are you feeling that too? If so, maybe you’ll end up agreeing and turning up the heat, and you just were waiting because you didn’t want to make me uncomfortable. Or maybe you’ll say “Oh, really? I feel like it’s really warm in here,” and then I’ll know I need to ask for something more specific. I see statement-based interactions as a way of starting a collaborative process where you take in their responses and see what you’re able to work out. Sometimes, they offer a solution right off the bat that you didn’t even know was possible, and sometimes, you have to ask questions about what your options are.
But maybe this way of thinking about interactions is actually a sign of being direct in disguise. After all, it’s frustrating when people take statements as an automatic hint. If I tell someone, “I’m worried that it’s gonna be hard to move all my boxes over to the new place,” and they respond, “Sorry, but I can’t help you move, I’m too busy,” I feel taken aback that they thought I was hinting. Expressing a need isn’t always the same thing as asking someone else to fulfill it, even if you wouldn’t turn down an offer. Maybe that’s a sign of being an asker at heart.
As I’ve gotten older, I think my communication habits have combined in a contradictory way. On one hand, I love the security that social etiquette brings, happy to cling to a set of rules. On the other hand, I grew up in an unstructured, non-hierarchical homeschooling environment, and it’s made me want to challenge decisions and question rules that don’t make sense.
I think I’ve grown a lot from the college student who was too scared to email professors for fear of hearing a “no,” but I can’t say I’m a completely direct communicator either, nor do I want to be. There’s a lubricating quality to indirect communication—it eases you into requests without dunking you headfirst into freezing water. I think, in general, a lot of the conflict around issues like Ask or Guess Culture comes from seeing one as the only given way. If you’re interacting with people from different upbringings, you’re always going to encounter a mix of both. I know how I prefer to be spoken to, but recognizing someone else’s style makes it easier to know what to expect from them. And sometimes, when you’re not sure whether you’re overstaying your welcome or missing a need or misinterpreting, you just have to Ask.
Wait a minute…
Hannah McNulty graduated from Calvin in 2021 and stuck around Grand Rapids, against all odds. She has spent her last few years singing in choir, teaching herself to love reading again, and trying to learn every fiber art simultaneously. She currently works at Eerdmans Publishing, where you can find her burying her nose in old paperwork and forcing anyone within earshot to listen to her bad puns.
