Friday nights at the cinema have become one of those small, anchoring rituals that I have come to enjoy and look forward to. Neither solemn nor official – just a rhythm that makes the week feel less like a free-fall. Recently Ambrosius suggested we all go – the three of us – to see a new kinky romance involving motorbikes, leather, and the kind of aesthetic that presses all my buttons. He sent the trailer, picked the showing, even allowed me to reschedule something so we could make it work.

And then, out of nowhere, he said he wasn’t going.

Just a simple, flat line. No explanation.

And because my mind is built on explicit statements, I treated it literally. “I’m not going” means “I’m not going.” End of story. The other friend still wanted to go; the plans shifted; life moved on.

Except that wasn’t what was happening at all.

This is where our communication styles diverge so sharply they might as well be different species. I speak in explicit meaning; he speaks in emotional implication. I take words as factual statements; he uses them as emotional indicators. I respond to the content; he expects me to respond to the subtext.

He hadn’t meant “I’m not going” as a factual update.

He’d meant something more like: “I’m disappointed, and I need you to show me that going together matters more than seeing the film immediately.”

But he didn’t say that.

And chaos ensued.

What followed was a slew of sideways comments – teasing jealousy, half-jokes that didn’t feel fully like jokes, little hints suggesting I preferred going with the other friend. The atmosphere got foggy and brittle. I could tell something was off, but not what. Then eventually he expressed, in a very roundabout way, that the whole point for him had been the three of us going as a group. He’d wanted that shared moment, not the content of the film itself.

Meanwhile, I was reacting with my own pattern: the moment I’m presented with conflicting signals, my internal system jams. I get sharp, defensive. I accused him of playing games – because I couldn’t make the puzzle fit. The literal words contradicted the emotional tone. It reminded me, painfully, of the same mismatch that elbowed its way through my marriage for years: one person speaking in implied emotional requests, the other taking everything at face value and stumbling into accidental hurt.

There it was again, but in miniature: he felt unheard because I didn’t respond to feelings he hadn’t expressed.

I felt confused because he said one thing and meant another.

There’s no malice in that dynamic – just two incompatible communication instincts grinding against each other like misaligned gears.

When the fog cleared, I realised he hadn’t been playing games. He’d been trying – in his own style – to signal disappointment, wanting reassurance that the togetherness mattered more than the film. And I’d been trying – in my own style – to honour what he said.

So I apologised for the accusation. I explained that I rely on directness; my mind simply does not translate implication into intention. If he wants me to wait, he has to tell me plainly. And I reassured him that he wasn’t being replaced. Friendship isn’t a queue with a single velvet rope; there’s room.

What I keep learning, again and again, is that people who communicate through implication assume they’re being perfectly clear. And people who communicate literally assume everyone else is doing the same. Both of us end up feeling hurt for reasons the other didn’t even realise were in play.

I hope that Ambrosius and I will be fine. We like each other, and I hope that neither of us is inclined to let a misread emotional semaphore topple a friendship. But the whole episode reminded me – again – how fragile relationships can be when one person whispers their needs in metaphor while the other listens for actual sentences.

Sometimes the film you don’t see together reveals the whole relational pattern in miniature.