Say it like you mean it.

I've decided that I dislike it very much when people speak in riddles as a means to simultaneously convey and hide what they mean to say.

Let me tell you a story about how I ended up with my first "boyfriend":

I was in sixth grade. His name was Eric Trumble. I typed him a note that was something to the effect of "The girl who wrote this likes you, but doesn't know if you like her. If you know who it is and you like her, write the word 'yes' and put it in her locker. If you don't know who it is, or if you don't like her, don't do anything." It was a foolproof plan. If he liked me, I'd find the note in my locker with his response. If he liked another girl, she would have no idea who the note came from, thus saving him from the embarrassment of giving it to her and me from the embarrassment of him knowing I was the one who gave him the note to begin with. And if he liked no one at all, I would remain anonymous.

In the end, he ended up handing me the note in person, with his "yes" scribbled plainly at the bottom. Cute, right?

But the thing that strikes me now is how much braver he was than I had been. My plan might have been a work of genius, but the fact that he had the guts to look me in the eye and hand me that slip of paper sort of left me feeling like a coward. And let's face it folks, it doesn't get much more cowardly than that note.

And here I am, years later, and I like to think that I'm a pretty straightforward person. If I mean to say something, I say what I mean. And if I'm not ready to say something, I don't (except on the occasions when I do. The outcomes on those occasions are mixed).

Which brings me back to our original topic: people who speak in riddles. At first I wanted to say that they do it as a sort of social filter; if you figure out the riddle, then you "get" them and therefore they allow you to be a part of their lives. But that seemed a bit pretentious to me, and that didn't quite fit. And then I thought maybe it was done for a measure of mystery. Everyone likes a mystery, right? (The answer is no.)

But the more I thought about it, the more I felt like people who try to hide messages in their words are doing exactly what I did when I wrote that note all those years ago-- they're protecting themselves. From shame, from embarrassment, from rejection, from judgement, from the general nastiness that comes from putting yourself out there and not being received as well as you'd hoped.

I said at the beginning of this post that I dislike when people speak in riddles. Why should I be so against someone trying to protect himself or herself? Here's why: because when you bury your meaning in a pile of meaningless words, even the people who think they know what you're saying would never admit to it, because they're not sure if what you're implying is actually being implied. People take things the wrong way. And if anyone picks up on the fact that they shouldn't take your words at face value, then they might start over analyzing everything you say and make assumptions that you never intended anyone to make.

Eric Trumble might not have done the bravest thing there was to do. He could have actually talked to me about it, or asked me out, or even asked me if I had written the note. But I'm sure he was scared too. I mean, who wasn't scared in middle school? The point is that he stepped up and did what I didn't have the guts to do. He took a social risk, and he was rewarded for it. I've been taking a lot of social risks lately, and even though they haven't all had the outcomes I was hoping for, I still feel like I'm better off for having tried.

So if you're out there, still speaking like the March Hare and typing up notes, then maybe it's time for you to take a leaf out of Eric Trumble's book.

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