Question wording?

Hello, I've been thinking about the differences between certain questions and now I'm wondering if I'm thinking too hard.

For example, is there a big difference between what someone thinks of you and how someone feels about you?

I know a lot of times people ask, "How does x feel about me?"

Or "What does X think about/of me?"

Most recently, I asked, "What does X like about me?"

I get that the last question is referring to specifics, but is there much of a difference between the first two? I tried a little exercise where I answer those questions about people in my life, but ultimately it seems that what I "think" is influenced by what I "feel" and vice versa.

Is there a better way to word the question to get the desired knowledge? Or does it not really matter either way? What are your thoughts?

Sorry if this is in the wrong area.



Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

nerdygirly said:

Hello, I've been thinking about the differences between certain questions and now I'm wondering if I'm thinking too hard.

For example, is there a big difference between what someone thinks of you and how someone feels about you?

I know a lot of times people ask, "How does x feel about me?"

Or "What does X think about/of me?"

Most recently, I asked, "What does X like about me?"

I get that the last question is referring to specifics, but is there much of a difference between the first two? I tried a little exercise where I answer those questions about people in my life, but ultimately it seems that what I "think" is influenced by what I "feel" and vice versa.

Is there a better way to word the question to get the desired knowledge? Or does it not really matter either way? What are your thoughts?

Sorry if this is in the wrong area.



Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

There's a difference. You can think So and so is a total a-hole, but still feel butterflies.

Alla G6.
There's a difference between think (another word is "know"), like and feel.
And ultimately imo - one is best off asking X about all those things directly - rather than the cards.

As Tanga stated, there's a big difference between the first two questions.

And I have to say that I like your third question much better than any other question of that nature.

When we ask "what does x think/feel about me", then mostly we are afraid to hear that they don't like us or anxious to hear that they like us. The positive or negative attitude we bear will have an influence on the reading and the wording will give the answer an air of definite fate. This we will be either disillusioned or fed with false high hopes.

But when we ask what they like about us (or in a conflict, what they don't like about us), we get an answer we can actually work with! So I think it's all about wording. And I very much like your take on this! It's much more constructive than fatalistic.

similar words can often have very different meanings. Sometimes different in subtle ways. Like 'house' and 'home'. I remember getting really angry with a 'how to help kids read' pamphlet that said it was okay to say 'house' instead of 'home' because they were 'getting meaning from the text'. I argued that it was a contextual guess and didn't help them learn the actual word, and secondly, conflated the meaning of two different words.

So yeah, I think it can really make a difference in the way you think about a thing. 'What is going to happen' versus 'what can I make happen' or 'should I take this path' versus 'which path should I take' or 'what should I think about when considering this path'... similar questions, different answers.

My current reading tends to be 'what's going on, and what should I do about it'.

nerdygirly said:

Hello, I've been thinking about the differences between certain questions and now I'm wondering if I'm thinking too hard.

For example, is there a big difference between what someone thinks of you and how someone feels about you?

I know a lot of times people ask, "How does x feel about me?"

Or "What does X think about/of me?"

Most recently, I asked, "What does X like about me?"

I get that the last question is referring to specifics, but is there much of a difference between the first two? I tried a little exercise where I answer those questions about people in my life, but ultimately it seems that what I "think" is influenced by what I "feel" and vice versa.

Is there a better way to word the question to get the desired knowledge? Or does it not really matter either way? What are your thoughts?

Sorry if this is in the wrong area.



Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

All 3 of those questions are different and could quite likely bring up different answers. I think it's a very good thing that you are thinking about all this. Since the cards can only answer what we ask, I think it can in fact be important to make sure we phrase the question in a way that will tell us the info we really want to know. It takes some thought when you are new to Tarot, it gets easier with practice. It's about the logic of it all. If you really phrased the question in the right/best way to get to what you want to know.

To give you an idea of the difference. Let's say what someone thinks about you might be that think you are intelligent. Thinking is something that comes through thought. So you may have told them something and when they thought what you had said over, to them it showed you are intelligent.

What they feel about your might be that they feel you can be trusted. Feeling is maybe more about what you SENSE in the other person, what your intuition tells you. You know how you meet someone new and sometimes you can sense form the start whether you trust them or not, before they open their mouth or say a word.

What does X like about you is a totally different question. The other 2 questions of course may show things that X does not like, the way they are phrased.

The issue is to first be clear on what desired knowledge you want to get to, then to phrase the question so that the answer that comes will be reflect that and give it to you.

Babs

G6 said:

There's a difference. You can think So and so is a total a-hole, but still feel butterflies.

Click to expand...

Very true as well, in which case you'd get vastly different answers to the first and second questions.

Babs

I agree that there is a huge difference between those questions. I guess it is helpful to remind oneself of the actual question asked - if you ask what someone likes about you, you are bound to get a positive answer because you asked about a positive thing. In contrast, by asking what someone feels there is the possibility that someone doesn't like you although that person may well respect you (think about you in a respectful way).

I've seen it come three different ways:

a) "What does X think about me?"

b) How does X feel about me?"

c) "How does X see me?"

a) and c) are mental impressions and observations, while b) is emotional, but I think the intent of all three is the same. It's a veiled way of asking "Does X like me?" without asking directly and dreading the answer. "What does X like about me?" is better because it refers back to the querent's role in the question (that is, X has already been given some reason to decide what's to like) and not just to X's unknown state of mind. I find this kind of question all too slippery and the answers entirely too ephemeral to be trustworthy. If there is no other context, such as an existing relationship of some kind that needs clarification, and the question is just a "shot in the dark" about someone you think you might like or have a chance with, X might not be thinking about, feeling about or seeing you in any way at all at the time of the reading. So the answer could be completely unreliable in all cases.

Barleywine said:

I've seen it come three different ways:

a) "What does X think about me?"

b) How does X feel about me?"

c) "How does X see me?"

a) and c) are mental impressions and observations, while b) is emotional, but I think the intent of all three is the same. It's a veiled way of asking "Does X like me?" without asking directly and dreading the answer. "What does X like about me?" is better because it refers back to the querent's role in the question (that is, X has already been given some reason to decide what's to like) and not just to X's unknown state of mind. I find this kind of question all too slippery and the answers entirely too ephemeral to be trustworthy. If there is no other context, such as an existing relationship of some kind that needs clarification, and the question is just a "shot in the dark" about someone you think you might like or have a chance with, X might not be thinking about, feeling about or seeing you in any way at all at the time of the reading. So the answer could be completely unreliable in all cases.

Click to expand...

The thing I think is that feelings and thoughts can be fleeting. Let's say the other person was feeling angry for an hour and got over it and let it go soon after. If they were angry at the time we did the reading and asked what they were thinking of feeling about someone, the answer could possibly also be different an hour later.

Babs