Twice in one week, I watched otherwise confident men squirm. Why? They wanted to pay a compliment to a woman but were afraid that it would be misconstrued as inappropriate. Have we gotten so politically correct that we can’t offer and receive simple, gracious words of acknowledgment? These men sure thought so.
I know you’re dying to know what the “offending” language was, so I will tell you and let you judge:
Scenario #1: My 23-year-old daughter came to one of Bottom Line’s monthly networking dinners with our experts. She often comes for the cocktail hour so that she can get the experience of communicating with and learning from some mighty impressive people. One of the people she spoke to was a doctor whom I have known since I was in my 20s. After my daughter left the dinner, the doctor sheepishly said that he had wanted to tell me in front of my daughter how poised and beautiful she is…but he was afraid that it is no longer safe for an older man to make a personal comment such as that about a young woman. Parents tell friends how beautiful their children are all the time, yet suddenly we can’t do that anymore? I might understand his hesitancy if he and I were brand-new acquaintances, but this man was at my wedding! What mother doesn’t want to hear that her children are poised and beautiful?
Scenario #2: I had lunch last week with another of our experts—a leading marketing professional who is now retired and spends much of his time blogging about personal responsibility and human character. He is on a mission to shift the world back to a more civil place. During our lunch, “Bob” shared with me how much he enjoys my blog and the quality of my writing—this was HUGE coming from a man with more than 90,000 Twitter followers. Before Bob told me of his admiration for me and my work, he shared his discomfort about telling me because he didn’t want me to misinterpret it. He was stepping gently in this overly politically sensitive environment in which we are all living. Don’t worry. Bob was not in any way making an inappropriate advance. He and I are both very happily married and share family stories regularly.
What do you think? Were these situations “squirm-worthy”?
My fear is that this focus on politically correct messaging has us running the risk of living in an aseptic world, free from the joys of sharing genuine emotions. And I wonder if social media has been partly responsible for it.
Many people criticize social media for the demise of face-to-face and ear-to-ear communication. Facebook posters present filtered messages of their reality and rely on “likes” and emoji hearts to measure the impact of the experiences they shared. Lots of likes = “they love me.” Few likes = “I’m a loser.” A simple click has become a surrogate for emotional validation—no words…no feelings. Just a click.
Want to interact with someone specifically? You can flash a smile and send a “snap” via Snapchat. Still no words…no feelings…just a selfie. Receiving a lot of snaps = they love me. Few snaps = I’m a loser.
There is, of course, texting. That has words, which is good. But it also is notoriously bad for understanding the tone and emotions in the words. Many a text fight has occurred thanks to the presumption of the “tone” in a text.
In this world of electronic communication, we are forgetting how to talk and how to listen. Young people in business prefer e-mail to phone calls. They just want the transfer of information, which means that both parties lose the opportunity to develop the idea and their relationship. Sure, some information can be transmitted electronically. But for ideas to truly grow, it takes the meeting of minds and hearts through interpersonal communication.
How far will this pendulum swing? Are we at risk of losing human connection because we are afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or inadvertently offending him/her when all we wanted to do was say something nice? Is social media creating an emotional moat around each of us?
I certainly hope none of that is the case. Harry Harlow’s experiments in the 1950s demonstrated the importance of social connection on infant development, and many researchers of all types of have shown the connection between community and longevity.
It would be truly dangerous to society if we can no longer feel safe sharing our feelings with others and instead, bit by bit, move toward a world of emotional isolation veiled in polite interaction.
Can we possibly find a balance? Most of the time, a compliment is simply a compliment and we should just say “thank you.”
