Making Decisions Based On Insufficient Information Case Study #1

I came across the following meme on Facebook recently, and it immediately raised a load of questions and thoughts in my mind:

Too Little Information

There is nowhere near enough information to allow you to answer this question – well, not without your core biases showing through.

For example:

1. Who is the woman? Is she a friend, a relative, a co-worker, his boss, an employee of the place, his mistress, or a stranger? Clearly this makes a massive difference to the situation.
2. Where are they? Their location (e.g. work, shop, public transport, home, park) could provide a big clue about what is taking place.
3. What are they talking about? A conversation about work with a colleague or idle chit-chat about the weather while waiting in line at the coffee shop are totally different to planning a secret liaison.
4. Who initiated the conversation? If she did, maybe he’s just being polite and has every intention of walking away as soon as he can. And if he did, that still doesn’t mean anything without additional information.
5. How long has the conversation been going on? If the conversation has only just started, that paints a different picture compared to one that has lasted an hour, say.
6. What sexual orientation is the woman? The assumption is that she’s heterosexual, but it’s possible she’s a lesbian, in which there would be less (or even zero) cause for concern. Even if the person talking to your man were another man, how do you know he’s not homosexual and trying to chat up your partner?
7. Is it obvious your man is in a relationship? If you’re married to the man and he’s wearing a wedding ring and she is the one who approaches him and she’s trying to pick him up, then she may indeed be the problem, because she should be able to tell that the man is theoretically unavailable – but see how many assumptions there are there. And if all of those assumptions happen to be true, his response may or may not mean he is at fault too. Alternatively, maybe he does wear a wedding ring but has deliberately removed it, which would make his behaviour suspicious, at the very least.
8. What are their expressions? Facial expressions and their overall body language may also give you a better clue as to what’s happening.

One-Sidedness

Why is this worded from only one perspective?

Shouldn’t the same apply if it were a man talking to your female partner?

Jealousy

The above might be considered as me being pedantic – after all, perhaps the person who created this meme was angling for a True response, perhaps to provide confirmation of that person’s own beliefs.

Regardless of that though, this is the big one – why would you be jealous of your man talking to another woman?

There are, of course, several reasons why this may be the case, including:

1. You know he has a track record of cheating, in which your suspicions may be well-founded.
2. You’ve been cheated on before by others and are now distrusting of men.
3. You’ve seen relationships of people you care about (e.g. parents, siblings, friends) destroyed by infidelity.
4. You’re projecting, assuming that because you have thoughts about cheating, then so does he.
5. You’re a control freak and/or narcissist, trying to micromanage who he may and may not talk to.

As you can see, all of the above, with the exception of the first reason, say a lot more about you than they do about your man.

Conclusion

First of all, I accept that this was just a meme posted on Facebook, and that I do not know why the person posted it.

Even so, I think there are two main lessons here:

1. Don’t jump to conclusions when you don’t have the necessary information.

   There is rarely, if ever, perfect information, but if the only fact you have is that your man is talking to another woman, then you do not have enough details to draw any conclusion at all.

2. Relationships that are not founded on mutual trust and respect are unlikely to last or be successful.

   The fact is, outside friendships in a relationship can be healthy for both partners, and this is a subject I discuss in Lesson 4.2 of my How To Keep The Spark Alive course.

The above meme has now garnered over 1,500 comments, which may have been the only reason the person posted it.

I’ve obviously not read all of those comments, but based on the ones I have read, a large proportion of people have simply answered True or False, as the meme asks.

This seems to show that many people are incapable of or unwilling to explore the many possibilities and think things through fully. (My job for many years, when I worked at my last company before deciding to work for myself from home, involved exactly that – reading documents written by my colleagues and trying to think of possibilities and options and exceptions that the author(s) had not considered, so that those potential loopholes could be plugged and future errors minimized.)

And as I said earlier, their answers, especially those who said True, are allowing their preconceived ideas to determine their responses – as I said, you cannot honestly answer True when you don’t have sufficient information.

As for the people who responded False, then this may mean they’re not the jealous type, and they see nothing wrong with their man talking to another woman, but what we cannot tell is how or why they reached that decision – because the information is not present that allows you to conclude anything.

On the plus side, some people did answer along similar lines to my own thoughts, albeit in much less detail and fewer words, but I accept that Facebook is rarely the place to write screeds of text (especially if you’re on your phone).

Finally, there may be one more take-away, and that is that even simple one-word answers can say far more about you than you might realize.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Critical Thinking
2. Jealousy