Some people ask bad questions pervasively. Don’t let recurring bad questions drive you crazy. Help faulty questioners straighten out their twisted queries so both of you stay sane. Four strategies can help.
Sometimes, Playing Dumb is Smart Communication
It is fitting in light of the recent death of Peter Falk, who played a bumbling homicide detective in the 1970s television series Columbo, to discuss the upside of playing dumb. As Columbo, Falk would lull criminals into a false sense of security by playing dumb so he could trip them up and prove that they committed the crime he was investigating. Just like on TV, playing dumb can sometimes be a smart communication strategy.
Smart communicators sometimes play dumb to serve the larger purpose of maintaining interpersonal harmony. Sometimes people simply say foolish things, and when you hear something in a conversation that is best left alone, playing dumb can be an excellent strategy.
Communicating With a Chatterbox
Some people never stop talking due to constant chatter inside their head. This thicket of noise can make talking (and listening) to them monumentally challenging.
When people carry a lot of chatter in their heads, these unordered, tangential thoughts can leak out all over their conversations in a stream of consciousness style. This makes it almost impossible to figure out what’s meaningful information and what’s just noise.