We just finished watching an interesting talk intended to encourage believers to see past cultural differences to love new people anyway. The speaker was a linguist and discussed our differences based on a concept he called pragmatics. One example was this discussion:
She said, "That's the phone."
He said, "I'm washing the dog."
She said, "OK."
The only things directly said in this discourse were all extraneous and all the intended messages were not said. But, we all understood the entire conversation.
His other example was this:
During a drive home, a married couple...
She said, "Are you thirsty?"
He said, "Nope."
When they got home, she said something about his insensitivity and stormed off. He sat staring at her empty seat completely befuddled.
This "pragmatic failure" had her hoping he would stop at their favorite stop and he thinking she was actually asking a question of HIS thirst.
He went on to talk about cultural differences between people who believe eye contact shows interest and people who believe it best NOT to be confrontational through eye contact. The potential for problems is so obvious in this example.
But we fall down in person to person settings too. Just as the above example, if we know everything the other person is thinking we can instantly be much more understanding. But since we don't have the opportunity to have every motivation and thought process clearly explained, we have a choice. We can either assume based on our own perspectives (which is completely normal) and risk being offended and getting angry. Or we can try to always assume the best.
Why did that person cut me off just now? "What a selfish jerk!" or, "Wow, they must be in a hurry!" We'll never know why people do everything they do or say everything they say. But if we by default assume the worst, we likely won't ever have the opportunity to even try to find out.