Interpersonal communication is complicated

No form of communication is simple. Because of the number of variables involved, even simple requests are extremely complex. Theorists note that whenever we communicate there are really at least six "people" involved:

1) who you think you are;

2) who you think the other person is;

3) who you think the other person thinks you are;

4) who the other person thinks he /she is;

5) who the other person thinks you are;

6) who the other person thinks you think she/he is.

We don't actually swap ideas, we swap symbols that stand for ideas. This also complicates communication. Words (symbols) do not have inherent meaning; we simply use them in certain ways, and no two people use the same word exactly alike.

Osmo Wiio (a Finnish researcher in human communication) gives us some communication maxims similar to Murphy's Laws (Osmo Wiio's Laws):

ü If communication can fail, it will.

ü If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way

which does the most harm.

ü There is always somebody who knows better than you what you meant by your message.

ü The more communication there is, the more difficult it is for communication to succeed.

These tongue-in-cheek maxims are not real principles; they simply humorously remind us of the difficulty of accurate communication.