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HughRistik comments on How to understand people better - Less Wrong
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No, I mean she is not saying "Nothing" with the intent to deceive Bob into thinking that, in fact, nothing is wrong.
No. You really, really can't. You are ignoring the information Bob receives from her tone of voice and body language. Bob may be literal minded but he is obviously not so literal minded as to miss this information. If he were he would not have insisted on that Alice tell him what is wrong.
Alice has already communicated to Bob that something is wrong with her body language, facial expressions or tone of voice.
But from the context that follows we know that Alice's body language and tone of voice did not express the same thing. And Bob realizes it when he says "It doesn't sound like that."
From Alice's perspective this is a bit smug. She is thinking "I fucking know it doesn't sound like that". It is debatable at this point what Bob should have said, sometimes asking again will get an answer. But he knows that something is wrong and that she is not saying what-- it is reasonable to expect a socially competent person to by now understand that what she really means is something like "I don't want to talk about it, at least not now.
Alice is clearly pissed. Apparently she is yelling. And Bob clearly knows it. And Alice knows that Bob knows it. So Bob has certainly concluded that Alice means something else than literally "Nothing is wrong". And then...
Bob has clearly figured out Alice is saying something like "I don't want to talk about it, at least not right now." He is now assuming he did something wrong and begging to be told what it was. But why is he persisting? He should already know that she doesn't want to talk about it at the object level and doesn't want to talk about it at the meta level. Yet by trying to talk about it on the meta level he is going against her wishes and starting a fight.
Now what Bob should do is just let it alone for an hour and see if she want to talk about it then. He has the right to not put up with her attitude if she won't tell him what he did. I wouldn't want to hang out with Alice when she is in this mood and if she expects him to without her explaining herself then he can reasonably say "I'm not putting up with the silent treatment all afternoon. Either tell me whats up or I'm gonna go do something else."
As for whether or not Alice ought to expect Bob to figure it out-- it may or not be a good habit -- but Alice wanting that and trying to communicate it is not lying.
And while communication is extremely important not everything needs to be turned into a huge, dramatic discussion or debate. Alice may know she'll be over it in a little while but starting a fight would lead to week-long estrangement. I don't know which of them is "right"-- I'm not sure that makes to talk about since these aren't real people and there is not actual problem. I am not in agreement with TimS that Bob is trying to dominate Alice... I just think he's being stupid.
Unfortunately, Silas' original example is under-specified, so there are many different situations that could lead to it, or potential power plays on both sides. I'm going to make a guess that the scenario (in Silas' imagination) occurred because of something Bob did or didn't do that Alice didn't like.
Alice is fuming, and she very much wants Bob to know. She feels that Bob should know better. That's why she won't tell him what it is. She wants him to figure it out for himself, and apologize to her. If he asks what is wrong as if he doesn't know, and she has to tell him, then she admits that there was ambiguity in the original situation, or lack of knowledge on his part, that completely or partially exculpates him.
Alternatively, she might agree that there are exculpatory factors, but she still want to see if he will now realize what he did wrong and apologize without her having to spell it out for him. This approach might be especially important if he forgot something (maybe their anniversary), and she wants to see how long it will take him to remember.
Another possibility might be that she doesn't want to tell him what he did wrong because she doesn't want to look accusatory or nagging. So instead she just blast accusatory nonverbal communication at him until he understands that he is supposed to start admitting guilt.
If Silas is imagining the same scenario that is evoked in my mind, Alice is not trying to disengage from communicating with Bob all; she is trying to show her displeasure with him, and get him to (a) admit that he is at fault, and possibly also (b) apologize to what he is at fault for without her having to explain it, proving that he has either "learned his lesson" or that he isn't trying to "play innocent."
This interpretation leads me to agree with you that Alice is not lying, and that she is using implicit communication, but I think she may be doing it even more than you realize. Note that I take no position about who is in the right or in the wrong.
Yes.
If Bob has good reasons to expect that she is unhappy with him, then it's not clear at all that she really doesn't want to talk about it.
Under the scenario I'm imagining, it's obvious why he persists. He doesn't believe that Alice is serious about not wanting to talk, based on the context, body language, and tone of voice. He interprets her communication to mean "I don't want to talk about the thing you did wrong unless you stop playing innocent about it and start groveling." That's why he starts groveling by admitting that he did something wrong... That might satisfy Alice, or she might want him to guess or admit exactly what he did wrong without her having to explain it.
In heated arguments, people often say and do things that they don't mean, or to test the reaction of the other partner. Alice could be sincere that she doesn't want to talk, but she could also be testing to see if Bob cares enough to find out what she is unhappy about, or if he will admit full culpability and apologize.
Some personality types feel differently.
Wait, what makes you think that Alice isn't trying to start a fight? She could be defending a Schelling Point.
Depending on the nonverbals, her behavior could be an excellent way to start a fight, while pretending that Bob is the one instigating it by pestering her. If she really didn't want to start a fight, she could either hide her displeasure better, or making it sound absolutely cold and serious that she doesn't want to talk. The fact that Bob is following up with questions suggests that he thinks she is trying to either start a fight, so he tries to roll over on his belly by asking what he did.
This only way Bob is being dominating is if he knowingly did something majorly fucked up or abusive, and is pestering Alice and playing innocent while trying to cope with it. Short of that, there actually may be good contextual reasons for Bob to believe that Alice wants to continue communicating with him, but just wants him to take an apologetic role, or (if they both know she is upset by something other than him) a supportive role. If Alice is using passive-aggressiveness to try to put him into an apologetic and groveling role, then she is the dominating one (of course, whether this is justified depends on context). Unless Bob is obviously in the wrong, then he is being stupid by letting her get away with this power play, which gives her an incentive to get upset in the future any time she wants concessions from him.
Of course, this is only one possible reading of the situation; I just suspect that it's a bit closer to what Silas intended that most of the other readings.
Incidentally, I offered these interpretations because they were the right answers in particular instances where a girlfriend said "nothing" when there obviously was something. At least these are plausible interpretations if I believe our later conversations about why she said "nothing". For these explanations the line by line interpretation is a little different-- she is upset enough that it is hard not to show it or perhaps she is torn about whether or not to show it. Perhaps she just wants Bob to feel a little bad about it. Perhaps Bob is more observing than we have so far given him credit for. When she yells at Bob in her last line she is yelling at him because she is annoyed by his instance on talking about it, not trying to be obvious about being hurt regarding the object-level matter.
I suspect Silas may have posted the comment without knowing or having a specific intended reading. Or he might be speaking as someone who has been a Bob in the past and genuinely isn't sure how to interpret Alice. I also think by rendering Alice's motivations explicit where making her too calculating. I suspect "nothing" often comes out just because it seems like the easiest thing to say at the moment not because of any well thought out strategic considerations.
I agree your interpretation is plausible, though.