
Too aggressive? Too passive? Find out if you come from an 'ask' or a 'guess' family.
Too aggressive? Too passive? Find out if you come from an 'ask' or a 'guess' family.
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Did you grow up in an "ask" family or a "guess" family?
An Australian podcast called Mamamia Out Loud recently posed the question on TikTok. In a guess family, that means "you don't really directly ask for anything ever," Jessie Stephens, host of the podcast, says in the video, like help with moving. You'd instead ask whether someone is busy over the weekend and sneak in a mention of what you need. In "ask families," you say what you need and it's on the other person involved to give a yes or no answer. No emotions involved. "The only time I would ever ask something of someone is if I was absolutely certain the answer was going to be yes," she adds.
The video has nearly 350,000 views, and hundreds of commenters weighed in on the issue from multiple sides. "Guessing is just passive aggressive manipulation," one person wrote. Another added: "Am I the only the one who thinks the 'ask' method is way more pressure?? The person is put on the spot and has to respond directly? Instead of coming to it themselves if they want to."
Like most communication concerns, no one is exactly right or wrong. Mental health experts say it's best for people to approach conversations with as much empathy as possible for another person, however they express themselves.
"The best way to communicate is to first acknowledge that having different communication styles is perfectly normal and not a deal breaker," says Chase Cassine, licensed clinical social worker.
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What to know if you're from a 'guess' family
Our families affect us in ways we can't always see. Someone who asks for something directly versus someone who opts for a more sheepish approach marks a good example of the outcomes of one's upbringing.
While not "formal psychological terms," "ask" and "guess families" are well-known in communication and pop psychology circles, says Luis Cornejo, licensed marriage and family therapist.
"Guess" is often code for "people pleaser."
"When you're using passive communication you tend to put your needs last, and the other person's first, even if it hurts you," says Regine Galanti, a clinical psychologist. "At an extreme, you can become a doormat in this mode."
Expecting a direct answer when you don't directly ask for one will cause only more confusion. "Others might not perceive the request at all and instead of viewing the listener as uncaring, explains Maryanne Fisher, a psychology professor at St. Mary's University in Canada, "they might need to a be a bit more direct in their requests. Rejection of a request is not the same as personal rejection, a lesson that is hard to learn."
Still, asking a direct question might feel a tad too blunt for someone used to beating around the proverbial bush. Try for a gray area. Instead of "Can you help me move," maybe try "Would you be open to helping me move?" "The key is self-awareness and small shifts," Cornejo says.
Good question: Are you ruining your relationship without even realizing it?
What to know if you're from an 'ask' family
Those from "ask" families need to pay attention to how they're delivering said ask. Are you being aggressive or assertive?
"While with aggressive communication, you prioritize your needs above all others, even if it means hurting or offending others, when you're being assertive, you're you balancing asking for what you need with the needs other people around you," Galanti says. "This style takes into account what other people might want or need while setting boundaries."
Try giving someone an "out" when you ask them for something.
"For example, 'I could really use help with planning this event for the committee we are both a part of, but I know you've just returned from a work trip and likely have a lot on your plate. If you have free time, can you help me out, even for just a few minutes?' This sort of reply also helps the listener provide assistance that is short in duration, rather than something that could take much longer and to which they'd want to decline," Fisher says.
Overall, though, try and meet each other where you're at when you have different communication styles.
"Embrace the differences and foster a safe space between partners where they can both actively listen to each other from a place of trust, empathy and vulnerability to build a solid foundation," Cassine says, "so that connection and communication with each other is resolved effectively when conflicts do arise.

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- Los Angeles Times
Hugh Jackman brings jokes, drama and John Denver to opening night at the Hollywood Bowl
Strumming a black acoustic guitar to match his black tuxedo pants and jacket, Hugh Jackman strolled onto the stage of the Hollywood Bowl and let the audience know precisely what it was in for. 'Little bit of Neil Diamond,' he said as the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra revved up the go-go self-improvement jive of 'Crunchy Granola Suite.' A dedicated student of showbiz history, the Australian singer and actor was starting his concert Saturday night just as Diamond did half a century ago at the Greek Theatre gig famously captured on his classic 'Hot August Night' LP. Yet Diamond was just one of the flamboyant showmen Jackman aspired to emulate as he headlined the opening night of the Bowl's 2025 season. Later in the concert, the 56-year-old sang a medley of tunes by Peter Allen, the Australian songwriter and Manhattan bon vivant whom Jackman portrayed on Broadway in 2003 in 'The Boy From Oz.' And then there was P.T. Barnum, whose career as a maker of spectacle inspired the 2017 blockbuster 'The Greatest Showman,' which starred Jackman as Barnum and spawned a surprise-hit soundtrack that went quadruple-platinum. 'There's 17,000 of you, and if any of you did not see 'The Greatest Showman,' you might be thinking right now: This guy is super-confident,' Jackman told the crowd, panting ever so slightly after he sang the movie's title song, which has more than 625 million streams on Spotify. The success of 'Showman' notwithstanding, Jackman's brand of stage-and-screen razzle-dazzle feels fairly rare in pop music these days among male performers. (The theater-kid moment that helped make 'Wicked' a phenomenon was almost exclusively engineered — and has almost exclusively benefited — women such as Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Chappell Roan and Laufey.) What makes Jackman's jazz-handing even more remarkable is that to many he's best known as the extravagantly mutton-chopped Wolverine character from the Marvel movies. Before Jackman's performance on Saturday, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Wilkins, played a brief set of orchestral music that included selections from John Ottman's score for 'X2: X-Men United.' The ascent of Benson Boone, with his mustache and his backflips, suggests that Jackman may yet find inheritors to carry on the tradition he himself was bequeathed by Diamond and the rest. But of course that assumes that Jackman is looking to pass the baton, which was not at all the impression you got from his spirited and athletic 90-minute show at the Bowl. In addition to stuff from 'The Greatest Showman' and a swinging tribute to Frank Sinatra, he did a second Diamond tune — 'Sweet Caroline,' naturally, which he said figures into an upcoming movie in which he plays a Diamond impersonator — and a couple of Jean Valjean's numbers from 'Les Misérables,' which Jackman sang in the 2012 movie adaptation that earned him an Academy Award nomination for lead actor. (With an Emmy, a Grammy and two Tonys to his name, he's an Oscar win away from EGOT status.) For 'You Will Be Found,' from 'Dear Evan Hansen,' he sat down behind a grand piano and accompanied himself for a bit; for the motor-mouthed 'Ya Got Trouble,' from 'The Music Man' — the first show he ever did as a high school kid, he pointed out — he came out into the crowd, weaving among the Bowl's boxes and interacting with audience members as he sang. 'I just saw a lot of friends as I went through,' he said when he returned to the stage. 'Hello, Melissa Etheridge and Linda. Hello, Jess Platt. Hi, Steph, hi, David, hi, Sophia, hi, Orlando — so many friends. Very difficult to say hello to friends and still do that dialogue.' He was panting again, this time more showily. 'It's like 53 degrees and I'm sweating.' The show's comedic centerpiece was a version of John Denver's 'Thank God I'm a Country Boy' that Jackman remade to celebrate his roots as an 'Aussie boy.' There were good-natured jokes about shark attacks and koalas and Margot Robbie, as well as a few pointed political gibes, one about how 'our leaders aren't 100 years old' — 'I'm moving on from that joke fast,' he added — and another that rhymed 'Life down under is really quite fun' with 'I never have to worry: Does that guy have a gun?' The emotional centerpiece, meanwhile, was 'Showman's' 'A Million Dreams,' for which the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra was joined by 18 members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Youth Orchestra Los Angeles. The song itself is pretty cringe, with a lyric bogged down by cliches and a melody you've heard a zillion times before. But Jackman sold its corny idealism with a huckster's sincerity you couldn't help but buy.