Hidden meanings

A popular example from internet memes:
Not sure if girl wants to cuddle when she says: It's cold... Or just stating the obvious.
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/358gfd

A girl wants a guy to hug her. But there is a rule in our society that men should take the initiative in man-woman things. So she can't hug him first. Also, she can't say directly "hug me" because she would look desperate or needy. That's why she gives him a message with a hidden meaning, hoping that he would guess her intention.
There are a lot more subtle details to this, but that's the main mechanism. Everything is played by the rules of society, but it leads to confusion.

Several years ago I witnessed a group discussion on selfless help. One person stated that people should help each other selflessly. Another person said that people should be careful because some selfish individuals could use that.
Someone must have incorrectly guessed the intention of the second person. He must have thought, that the second person is generally against selfless help. But he didn't ask about that. Instead, he started to advocate for selfless help. Someone must have seen it as insisting on blindly helping everyone and being taken advantage of.
This thing quickly escalated to a very chaotic discussion. I believe, that every person participating in this discussion was more or less on the same page. They all believed it is good to help others, but it's also good to be careful.
It could have been avoided if just one person stated "I'm not against selfless help. I'm just saying you need to be careful.". Then if another person replied "Oh, OK. I'm not saying you don't need to be careful.", it would be over.
But they assumed the communication is working. They just thought that others were wrong.

Also several years ago I was writing via Skype with a guy. I don't remember the topic of our conversation. I remember, that none of what he wrote made any sense to me. I could see no content in his statements, just babble. I was obviously confused. I tried to precisely present my position. I tried to suggest him to do the same. But he didn't.  After reading everything he wrote 3 or 4 times I finally understood what he was doing. I asked him: "Are you trying to assure me, that I don't need to defend myself, because you thought that I was defending myself, because I felt attacked by you?". He answered: "OMG, yes.". I explained to him, that I wasn't defending myself, I didn't feel attacked and that I just wanted to be specific and precise.
This way I avoided a potential conflict. I somehow managed to correctly guess the hidden meaning behind his words. Then I expressed my intentions directly, without any hidden meaning.


People have this amazing tendency to over-simplify things that are actually more complex, but they are true masters in complicating things that are actually quite simple.