Nobody's lying, but the stories don't line up...

The worst/hardest thing about human communication is that no one has to be lying for the stories to not line up.*

There is, practically speaking, very little that can be done about the absence of shared “truth”, and therefore, “what happened” is impossible to prove.

Ok, yes, a neutral party observing an exchange could report out the literal words and actions, but that would not account for the meaning each person independently applied to those words and actions.

Nor would it account for the way the exchange was filed away in each persons memory bank, which has been consistently organized in its own unique idiosyncratic way.

So when it is retrieved, in some cases, very little temporal or “literal” data is retained. What is recalled is corporeal or “in the body” - aka “how it felt to me.”

This may bear very little resemblance to the initial exchange. It’s been diluted, enhanced, or otherwise remixed in some way.

In short, people are not experiencing, much less remembering, “objective reality” especially if/when they are emotionally activated in some way.

Ironically, everyone believes that their side of the story is the accurate one.

It is not.

In fact you’re both wrong. Everybody’s wrong.

But all is not lost.

In cases where we:

a) can safely assume best intentions/lack of intentional harm

b) have a vested interest in resolution and reconciliation (Think “reconciliation” in the way of balancing a bank account- how do we make it work out?)

And c) have some amount of trust built up (or available for your use),

there are antidotes.

Not a secret, foolproof recipe, mind you. You’re gonna have to get creative and find your mutual way forward, but here are some possible paths:

Curiosity. Compassion. Empathy. Kindness. Humility and willingness to be or have been wrong or mistaken. Awareness of these confounding factors.

And-

A willingness to step out of a commitment to your version of “what happened” much less of “what you did to me” and into a space of shared understanding.

Here’s how that could look: “It sounds like we have have very different interpretations of what happened; can you walk me through how it went for you so I can understand where we are missing each other?”

What does not help us move toward resolution is ascribing meaning and intent to the other person’s behavior or to their interpretation. “You are wrong.” “You did that because _____”. “That’s not what happened.” “I don’t believe you.” “You’re crazy.”

What about “Some shit happened, not quite sure what, and we both disliked how it went and how it felt.”

We gaslight each other ALL.THE.TIME by insisting that human communication can ever be held to the fake standard of objectivity.

That is not a thing, and folks have to release the belief in right/wrong when it comes to your average interpersonal mess.

It’s just human.

Or, colloquially- “People be peopling.”

Peopling is always messy, rarely linear. Always stumbling over each other’s buried land mines.

Folks come in to every relationship dragging their personal sack of shadows and sorrow around behind them, just trailing debris along the way.

If an alien asked me what it means to be human, that might be the description I gave. It’s messy, and also beautiful.

It has so much potential.

It rarely lives up to it.

So. Resolve your shit. At the end of the day, you felt what you felt. That’s ok. The “truth” or even really a “why” is not our goal. Our goal is finding a way forward together without harming our relationship. So the question is always: What do we do now?

*this line is borrowed loosely from Ani Difranco “Hour Follows Hour” which is a GREAT song, IMO.