Eric Barker writes the blog called "Barking Up the Wrong Tree". He sends out an article on the blog once a week. This week's is titled "How to Easily Make Your Relationships Awesome: 4 Secrets". The post focuses on the work of John Gottman, the retired professor known worldwide for his research on marriage. It is often the case, these days, that "relationships" refers to heterosexual couples' arrangements, marriages, pre-marriages and post-marriages. However, Barker's summaries of Gottman's research refers as much to all-guy and all-girl relations as to couples.
Barker's post for this week arrived today and as I read it, I was intrigued by the Barker/Gottman concept of "bid". Parallel to a bid in an auction or in a game of bridge, these men use the word "bid" for an opening, an offer, an attempt to befriend, to open a conversation, to strike up a relation or a mini-relation. Reading the article (linked below), I remembered a laugh I had back in high school. I read Stuart Chase's helpful book "The Tyranny of Words." It was so good and so helpful that I went on to Hayakawa's "Language in Thought and Action". The two were both semanticists, specialists in words and their effects.
A one point, Hayakawa was discussing initial comments, the kind one makes to be civil, maybe to be sympathetic, maybe to talk about a problem and arrive at a solution. He said to suppose one had a flat tire, a problem that used to be more common than it is today. You're getting out the jack and the lug wrench, cursing your luck, when a person walks by and says (and I quote)"Got a flat?" I don't know about you but my people and me are the sort who could be quite peevish about such a remark. "What the hell does it look like?" comes to mind along with variations as a response. S.I. Hayakawa, who was a college president and a US Senator, advises to translate the remark into a bid for conversation. Offer a civil reply and at a minimum, feel better about the world and its ways. Who knows? The passerby might turn out to be an expert at changing a tire, just looking for someone to help.
Take a look at Barker's pleasant summary of the Gottman book, "The Relationship Cure":
