TOD 09.10.07

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” With this famous line, Shakespeare flung open a truly significant window on human language. As my father often said to me, you can tell a lot about people by what they bother denying. See, if something isn’t really a concern, you don’t respond to it. But when you vehemently deny something, it’s usually evidence of insecurity or uncertainty being vigorously covered over.

I recalled this over the weekend when I was discussing parenting with a single friend. She wants to be married but hasn’t found the right guy yet, and I almost said to her, “Well, don’t worry, there’s plenty of time.” In a rare moment of restraint, I held my tongue because I realized what an awful thing that would have been to say.

It sounds like an assurance, but in fact it would likely have made her upset because it’s effectively saying that the risk of never finding anyone is so real that it merits denying. In contrast, consider that I’d never bother saying to her, “Don’t worry, the sun will rise tomorrow,” because it’s obviously true. It’s important to realize that our words can easily tell more about what we don’t want to say than about what we actually do say.