Virtual Flaneurism

Check out this interesting article about Askers and Guessers. The general idea of the article is that there are two types of people: those who will make a request regardless of the likelihood of approval (askers), and those who will analyze a situation to decide the likelihood of getting a "yes" and not ask at all if approval seems unlikely (guessers). Guessers, they say, find asker requests uncomfortable, rude and overly forward, because they assume that everyone else is an asker and only makes requests when they believe they'll get a yes (and meaning they assume the guesser will say yes to their "outrageous" request, which the guesser clearly does not want to do). Askers, conversely, just ask, with the belief that the other will say no if they don't want to do the request.

If that was unclear - and I'm almost certain it was - read the article. I don't know why I try to summarize things already concisely written.

Anyway, I know that I am a lifelong guesser, and have always felt like askers are socially inept simpletons. However, the article suggests that neither strategy is wrong, but rather that it is the clash of the two that causes problems. Apparently Russian culture is an asker dominated culture, and they find Americans (who are predominately guessers) rude and pretentious.

Anyway, an odd look at human behavior. I would argue that guessers, as people who consider their surroundings and try to think out situations, are arguably more intellectual than their asker counterparts. A dog can ask for anything he wants - but no dog will think through the likelihood of whether he'll be successful with his request.