I think we all know people who “talk to the air” – the kind of people who make comments like “Boy it’s hot in here, why isn’t the window open?”, while these kinds of comments can very well be benign and not mean a thing, many times it should be translated as “I’m hot, can you open the window for me?”
While the example above doesn’t have any big consequences other situations do create bad communication and frustration between people. In the example above, I use to either do one of two things, I would either open the window for the person without asking others, or I would ignore the person (since he/she wasn’t exactly talking to me anyway) because I didn’t care for the window to be opened.
The problem this creates is that someone will not be heard, either the asking person (when ignored) or others… Now when I hear something like that I either ask “Are you hot, do you want the window open?” which allows the person to directly ask what he/she wants to me and others around, or I ask “So, what you are saying is that you are hot and want the window open?” These responses allow full communication.
While the examples are a bit lame, I think the point comes across, full communication is much more healthy and creates a safe enviornment for people to share and fellowship, rather than speaking in codes and adjusting to people’s fears.