The Past Tense

Sometimes, it takes me a long time to write emails. I'm a words person, and I always want to say the right thing in just the right way. This combined with the anxiety of not having the benefit of nonverbal communication to guide me makes me rewrite emails and edit them and worry about them when I click send.

And the waiting is excruciating, of course, especially when you're not sure how they will react to a sensitive request.

The number one thing I worry about is coming across as pushy or bossy. Hence, I've noticed that tend to say things like

I was wondering if ...

I was hoping that ...

Do you think you can ...
Is there a possibility that ...

It's fairy common knowledge that "was" is the past tense form of the verb "to be." But what's not-so-common knowledge is that it's also a way to pretend to be polite. At least for me. If my email prose were a person, it would be a shy child asking for something they're sure they're not going to get.

"Gee, you know, I was just wondering ... if maybe ... you know ... could you? ... if you're not too busy, of course ... pretty please with a cherry on top?"

I've even noticed this in my writing. When I was working on my thesis in grad school, my advisor noted that I used conditional verbs a lot--would, should, could, etc.--that can often be replaced with stronger verbs or the simple past tense. From then on, I was aware of this implicit hesitancy in my writing, as if everything that were happening were dependent on others' opinions even in fictional stories. 

But as I re-learned while writing my thesis, one of the tenets of good writing is simplicity and using only as many words as you need to get your point across. Using the past or present tense often does just this.

When you're hesitant to ask for something or when you're dealing with any measure of social anxiety, it's easier to beat around the bush, shielding yourself in case things don't go your way. I mean, I was "just wondering" so if you say no, it's not the worst thing that could happen right?

And hesitancy for me is also a way to avoid controlling people or making people feel that I want to control them. Being controlling is one of the worst traits someone possess because it affects everyone around them. I don't want to order people and I don't want to sound as if I'm expecting something from them. I'm kindly requesting a favor and I want my communication to sound like that.


Which is why I'll be drafting an email and thinking that instead of saying, "I'm wondering if you can do ... for me" or "Do you think you might be able to ...?" I could be upfront about what I want and when I want it. But I backtrack and wonder if that's necessary and try to be hesitant and simple and to the point all at the same time.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being assertive, but assertiveness comes off differently in the written word. There're no body language cues to let you know that this person isn't really the worst, and no assurance that the other person believes that you deserve what you're asking for.

And here we reach the rub of it: being deserving of whatever you're requesting. Maybe I've been hesitant in the past because I've struggled with wondering if I truly need or deserve what the other person has to offer. I reached out in hopes that the person would give me what I needed out of the kindness of their heart and I wanted to be sure that I was as nice as possible and didn't come across as someone who believed I was entitled to their time. It's a difficult line to balance on. 

So the enchantment is this: Once you believe that you're worthy of that person's attention--that's when you find the words to ask what you want for with confidence.