Come think with me…
Do you have a waffle brain or spaghetti brain?
Let me explain.
I was actually talking to a work colleague about the way I think versus my husband. He laughed at me and he’s like “oh the old spaghetti versus waffle brain.” To be honest I had no idea what in the world he was talking about. It’s usually explained as men having waffle brains and women having spaghetti brains— but I’m less interested in making this about man-versus-woman thing. (Because in his case he had the spaghetti and his wife a waffle)
I’m much more interested in the idea that two people can be looking at the exact same situation and processing it completely differently.
Because if you’ve ever met my husband and me, this suddenly explains a lot.
But he explained it like this. Picture a nice fluffy warm waffle sitting in front of you. It’s made up of all those little individual squares. You grab the syrup and gently pour it all over. The syrup runs into the squares and fills the compartments.
That’s the metaphor.
A waffle thinker tends to separate things in to categories. This problem goes here. Work goes over there. We’re talking about this right now, so why are you bringing up that?
One square at a time.
Now picture a bowl of spaghetti in front of you. You grab the sauce spoon and pour the sauce on top of the noodles. What happens?
That sauce touches every single noodle. Every noodle is tangled with another noodle. The sauce doesn’t politely stay in one designated section. It works its way through the entire bowl.
Welcome to my brain.
My brain is spaghetti. My husband’s brain has filing cabinets, folders, labels and apparently a security guard preventing unrelated thoughts from entering.
Meanwhile, I’ll connect a conversation about buying a camera to behavioral economics, identity, marriage, childhood conditioning, and capitalism all before he’s finished reading the Amazon reviews.
And somehow, every one of those things really does feel connected to me. Michael, meanwhile, is probably wondering why the hell we aren’t still talking about the camera. And what it has to do with anything.
But it has to do with EVERYTHING.
But is This Actually How Our Brains Work?
This is where my brain did what it always does. I couldn’t just enjoy the metaphor. I needed to know if there was actually something behind it.
And this is where an important distinction comes in: “waffle brains” and “spaghetti brain” aren’t scientific classifications of the humane brain. They’re metaphors.
But the metaphor points to something much more interesting.
People really can differ in how they organize information, make associations, use context, compartmentalize experiences, and move between ideas. Yes, yes, I know we all know this and is very basic. But to actually notice and be self aware, and then aware of how others actually are processing information. I started to pay way more attention.
Some of us naturally make connections across seemingly unrelated subjects. Others are more comfortable moving through information sequentially or keeping different areas separate.
And that got me thinking about communication.
What If We Aren’t Actually Bad at Communication?
How often have you been talking to someone and thought:
How are you not understanding what I’m saying?
Meanwhile, they’re probably sitting there thinking the same thing about you.
Maybe we’re not always bad at communicating with each other. Maybe sometimes we’re communicating perfectly… for our own brain.
I’m giving you all the connections because those connections are what make the idea make sense to me.
You’re asking me to remove all the connections because you need mental points before anything else makes sense to you.
Neither one of us necessarily lacks communication skills. We may simply be translating information into different internal systems.
And if that’s true, it changes the question.
Instead of asking:
Why can’t you understand me?
Maybe we should occasionally ask:
How does this person need information presented to order understand me?
That matters in marriage. In parenting. In friendships. In careers. It matters when we’re teaching someone. And it absolutely matters in leadership.
Maybe Different Isn’t Difficult.
I think we sometimes label people as difficult when what we really mean is:
They don’t process the world the way I do.
The person asking for more context isn’t necessarily overcomplicating everything. The person asking you to get to the point isn’t necessarily dismissing you. One brain may need to see the connections. Another may need to find the right square first. And neither one has to be the better brain.
Maybe understanding our own thinking style isn’t about putting ourselves into another personality box. Maybe its about being aware a the operating system we’re already using— and realizing the person across from us might be running something completely different.
Which leaves me with the question I haven’t been able to stop thinking about:
How many arguments do we have because we’re trying to make somebody understand something the way we understand it.
So now I’m curious.
Are you the waffle?
Or are you the spaghetti?
And more importantly…
Who in your life have you been expecting to think like you?
EverAfterHer 