What Does Taking Things Literally Mean In Communication?

My best friend loved playing 'jokes.' On my birthday, she projected my worst photos in front of everyone, saying she just wanted to 'liven up the mood.' When I was on my period, she deliberately gave me a defective pad. Even when she saw the stain on my clothes, she said nothing–claiming she was helping me 'get more attention.' After I started dating, she edited my photos into suggestive images and spread them across social media groups, pricing them like a product. When I finally snapped and confronted her, she just laughed. "I'm just helping you test your boyfriend," she said. "If he doubts you, then he doesn't really love you. How can you blame me?" Later, a man used the information from those posts to track me down and harm me. I did not survive what followed. However, when I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day she first shared those images.

My son, Archie Burton, has a bad habit of being painfully honest. I ask him, "Am I handsome?" "To be honest, Dad," he says, "you're the ugliest dad in the whole kindergarten." My mother-in-law tears into me for being a spendthrift after I buy Archie an expensive backpack, and I ask him how he feels about it. "Honestly," he says, "it makes me happy to watch you get chewed out." My wife asks him jokingly if he'll take care of me when I get old. "No way am I looking after him," he says. "When he gets old, he should just die." My heart sinks. But Archie just smiles. "I'm only telling the truth!" Then the police come by to conduct a census check and ask him a few simple questions. He is brutally honest as usual. Only this time, he regrets it for the rest of his life.

My boyfriend, Aiden Ramsey, loses a game of Truth or Dare during a party. Someone dares him to say ten good things about my best friend, Natalia Williams. Aiden doesn't hesitate at all when he answers, "She's pretty, bubbly, has a great figure, knows how to play coy, loves to smile, has a high EQ, is independent, and has a good sense of aesthetics. Also, she's very good at making other people happy." Natalia picks Aiden again in the next round. She smiles and says, "Tell us about Sylvia's good qualities." Aiden is stunned for a few seconds as he looks at me. In the end, he finally answers, "She's understanding." Someone smiles and tries to smooth over the situation by asking, "What else?" Aiden frowns, seeming to be deep in thought. However, he's unable to come up with another good thing about me. A wave of exhaustion suddenly washes over me as the awkward silence stretches on. Aiden and I have been dating for seven years. We're going to get married soon. However, even after mulling over his thoughts for such a long time, the only good thing that he can say about me is that I'm understanding. I decide that I'm not going to be understanding anymore.

My words can kill. Whatever I say comes true. When I was eight, my cruel adoptive father kicked me into an icy river. I glared at him and said furiously, "You'll drown if you go into water." The next day, he drowned in a stinking ditch where the water barely reached his knees. After realizing I could really kill people, I was so scared I stopped talking and became a mute. A year ago, I was taken back to the Shaw family. In order to stay with the family that I'd finally found after all these years, I absolutely refused to speak. But one day, after Jackie Shaw took a sip of the drink I brought him, he suddenly convulsed and fell to the floor, his face turning purple. A maid screamed in terror, "There's peanut powder in the drink!" Before I could even say anything, my twin sister, Violet, kicked the coffee table, grabbed my hair, and pressed me down hard onto the broken glass shards. "You know Jackie is severely allergic to peanuts! How could you poison him?!" After Mom gave Jackie an emergency injection, she turned around and slapped me hard. "I can't believe I gave birth to a malicious monster like you!" Dad's face was ashen. He splashed boiling tea all over me. "You heartless, vicious ingrate! I can't believe you tried to kill Jackie out of jealousy!" Boiling water mixed with blood dripped down my face, and I clenched my teeth tightly. They had no idea that if I truly wanted him dead, I wouldn't even need to poison him. I just had to speak. Like this. I slowly looked up at Jackie, and my lips moved...

I have a severe case of logorrhea. Only speaking makes me feel alive. My classmates all call me a freak, but Marvin Britt is the only one willing to listen to me. One day, I bring some homemade soup over to see him, only to catch him holding his junior's hand. "Lexie, your voice is so lovely, unlike my wife at home. She sounds like a squawking duck. It's exhausting." My hands shake so violently that I drop the thermal flask. The commotion angers a nearby madman, who forces a bottle of boiling water down my throat. With my mouth full of blood and blisters, I realize I need proof. I send Marvin—a lawyer—a frantic voice note to accompany me to the police station for evidence. Marvin shoots back a single word—"Noted". Of course. He doesn't even listen to it, as usual. He used to reply to everything I said with voice notes at least a minute long. But we hit the seven-year itch, and he's sick of my endless talking. Leaving the hospital, I stare at my diagnosis of permanent mutism and laugh bitterly. He must be thrilled. His world is finally quiet.

When we get too much involved in the act of pretending, we lose the idea of knowing the pretense of others. Isn't that how it works? We don't know the acts we do thinking good for the others even to the extent of hurting them to save them from major hurt will cause them to go through much more than we can think of. Sometimes it is not too late to correct the pretenses but sometimes it is late to amend them. Let's see whether it is too late or just in time.