On the subject of sharing with other people in our lives, what, and how much, or trying to discern when the other person is really asking or not, I found that getting myself out of the equation and focusing my attention on the other person, helps to a great extent (the action of external considering). Like Buddy says, this too can be taken as an experiment with a good dose of curiosity and our needs (to share what we know, feel above the other person because of what we know, be in a teacher mode or enhance our ego because we feel we know something that others don't, etc) out of the way.
I remember once I was much younger and babysitting a few days-old baby. I love babies, and I knew how to feed him, help him burb and change him, so all was well until he suddenly started crying uncontrollably! I was holding and rocking him, but it made no difference, and he was crying so hard that it pained me that I didn't know how to help him out of his misery and he could not tell me what was wrong. Then it occurred to me to place him on a bed and watch him, just observe what was going on with him. He could not tell me in words how he felt, but his crying and bodily movements were his way of communicating his frustrations with me, and by observing his little face distortions and his body language, I realized that he was experiencing pain from the abdominal area. Once I figured that out, I remember his mother saying something about colitis pains and anise tea, which I gave him, but I also though: me, as an adult, what do I do when my belly hurts? I then put my hand on his belly and started a very gentled-pressured massage with singing in soothing voice. It worked! He not only stopped crying, soon he fell asleep. And I felt so good about myself for finding the solution through "listening" to him :)
I think of this situation quite often nowadays, because I think the people we communicate with (whether those close to us or strangers in social or work situations) are like that baby: unable to exactly tell what is going on inside of them (just like most of us most of the time, really!) but by observing their body postures and facial expressions, we can tell where they are at. I'll take the situation with Ekio and his wife as an example (I hope you don't mind, Ekio):
So Ekio's wife saw Ekio reading something on the internet and from his facial expressions she was curious to know what was he was reading. Ekio shared with her, and then she asked another question and another and another, with Ekio getting excited to hear his wife's interest and answering each question. When Ekio later told her of another story he was reading similar to the original his wife asked about, his wife gets mad and attacks. It might sound like a crazy, unpredictable behavior from her part to Ekios at this point, but what actually happened is that Ekios missed to actually "listen" to his wife, in all ways. Because she might have not said it in words, but her reaction to the news she was getting must have been there all along: tension in her body, a certain face expression of fear or doubt or distrust, a certain display of body language that showed she was threatened, or any other. Ekios missed all that because he was all in his head feeling excited that his wife seemed to be getting interested in the things he is (internal considering mixed with wishful thinking), and was taken aback at her subsequent reaction. If Ekios was observant of all his wife's non-verbal communications, he might have stopped the conversation earlier, or not share the second zombie story at all, or even ask his wife: "sweetheart, you seem a bit (tense, scared, angry, threatened). What's going on?" HE might have even sat her next to him and held her in his arms while saying, "I know, it's a crazy world out there, isn't it?" or words that validate her experience, sharing that he himself feels scared sometimes of what goes out there perhaps, and making her feel that this experience of thread brings them closer together than apart. Next time he knows better than to share such stories with her. If she asks again, again he will have to asses the situation by "listening to her" and then decide how to proceed in his answer, taking her internal state into account.
PS: Again, to clarify, the above story is used as an illustration for an example and I, in no way, claim to have known what actually took place. Kinda like: based loosely on such and such story, like they do in the movies.
;)
