Deliberately Obtuse

Deliberately obtuse

Have you ever dealt with someone who is obtuse? Or deliberately obtuse? Meaning they are annoyingly insensitive? We will come across folks like this from time to time, and we have to be able to figure out how to deal with them.

Maybe you have been in a scenario where you are trying to find the status of something that you ordered but hasn’t come in. And as you speak with the customer service rep, they are obtuse with you. They are saying things like, yeah, I see that is back-ordered. And that is all they say. Again, they are not answering your need. They are “being annoying,” and if they continue, they have become deliberate.

Now some folks may not know that they are doing it. Hopefully, they have someone on their side who recognizes it. In a lot of cases, they need to be educated or trained better to not only answer but not be obtuse.

If you get in this situation, try your best to pivot out of the conversation. If you know, others might be better suited, escalate, and ask for a manager or someone else. If you are in a relationship, you may need to escalate to a friend or an impartial third party so you can get a message through to the obtuse abuser.

Nonetheless. Know the signs. Don’t get into a war of words with someone who is being deliberately obtuse because their only goal will be to continue to irritate and dismiss your need. Also recognize, while this person may be accomplishing their goals in the short term, there are long term ramifications of trust and progression of the relationship that can erode or destroyed.

Now I don’t want you to think that thinking obtuse is a horrendous thing. If you are deliberately not answering the question, but trying to solve all the other issues around it, you can start to see something that people can’t see. Its the difference between unconventional thinking and that next level of thinking. Just ask James Dyson, creator of the Dyson line of products which are obtuse, and are insensitive to the standards that were out before him.

Obtuse is a powerful action. Choose wisely which way you want to use it, or be used by it.