When someone asks for your opinion, give it. Seriously?!

If someone asks for your opinion, do you give it right away or hold it back? If you hold back, you indeed have your reasons. And your reason would not be beyond six categories of logic. I will explain these reasons below, along with recent research published in the Harvard Business Review on likeability and its relation to expressing opinions.

But before discussing the reasons for holding back and the research, I should say that it is a dangerous world out there; it is not always safe to give your opinion whenever you are asked to opine. I have seen that firsthand.

I am an opinionated person. You can tell. Since my undergraduate study until the beginning of my career, I gave my opinion as soon as it was solicited. And I expressed my opinion in blogs, articles, and verbal debates in unstructured settings and gatherings. Those opinions were on very thorny subjects, mostly religion, creed, society, and even relationship matters.

Expressing my opinions honestly and straightforwardly made many people around me uncomfortable. For instance, I lost two friends because they asked me about my opinion about banks' interest (Riba in Islamic banks terms), and I said I do not believe the interest rate is taboo or non-Islamic; they asked me 18 years ago for my opinion on polygyny, and I opined that I do not believe that polygyny is a legitimate practice in Islam and I do not believe there is any verse in the holy Quran allows that. I gave my reasoning and believed I had excellent logic behind my thinking, but that was the last night I went out with them. They turned cold and distant, and that was the end. They felt I was an outlier they did not want to associate with. A broader audience in the community followed suit when I opined on the practice of people who celebrate the commemoration of Imam Husain, the amplifiers of the call for prayers in mosques, and the 20% levy on Shia's people net wealth paid to turbaned scholars, etc.

 Professionally, over 20 years of expressing my opinion has yielded mixed results. Although the audience saw and agreed with my reasoning, and they almost always believed in my reasoning, they also were hoping and expecting me to marry those opinions with "it is your call," "but that is only my opinion," "but that is only my view," "whatever you deem appropriate," etc. It is a paradox; they want your opinion but do not want you to be "opinionated." I am curious if that makes sense to you, but that is how it is. Being opinionated makes you uneasy going in their eyes, aggressive, overly assertive, tough, and eventually unlikeable. 

Suppose you can relate to any of the above experiences. In that case, you might be practicing the holdback to your opinion and have ready-made sentences that you always pick out of your pocket to throw out whenever you are asked for an opinion to avoid being not easygoing or likable to people. You might be saying: "If that makes you comfortable," "I see your view," "I understand your feeling," "I am speechless," "I did not think about that before," etc.

But why do people hold back? In my opinion (here we go again), people hold back to their opinion even if directly sought because:

1)    They are pleasers: some people have a very clear target that they remind themselves with at the crack of the down until they retire to bed: "I will never upset anyone, and if expressing my opinion will make any person upset with me, the hell with my opinion, I will keep quiet, keep my opinion to myself, or even mold it to suit the person or audience asking or expecting me to say my opinion, but I will never say anything that could upset anyone." People with this approach have practiced it until it became congruent in their being; they do not think twice or look so jaded to please; with practice, it has become second nature.   

2)    They do not feel safe: these people do not care if the person or audience asking for their opinion will be pleased or not, but they hold back because they do not feel safe; they are afraid of being judged, perceived to be siding with someone, perceived to have a hidden agenda, perceived to be stepping on someone's influential toes, perceived to be disrespectful to a family member, friend, colleague, line manager, or even a spouse. Why would you spell out your opinion if you do not trust the asker's reaction or interpretation of your opinion they ask.

3)    They live in an utterly nonsense fantasy: Can you believe that a man takes his partner out for dinner or set home watching TV and would like to order dinner to have quality time together with her, but they end up in a big fight because he asks her for what she wants or thinks they should have and she would not say it? The reason is primarily due to her living in her nonsense fantasy that deep inside, she wants him to choose the food she craves without saying it or surprise her in the outing with a restaurant that she always wanted or liked again without her even mentioning it. She is romanticizing the choice of food.  This is utter nonsense. Life is too short. Those fights always occur because women listen to other women's advice about relationships with men. It is time to listen to a man's advice this time. Men like decisive women. Holding back your opinion about a dinner or restaurant irritates him, distances him from you, and subconsciously burdens him that you are a kid he must take care of and decide for. There is absolutely nothing to romanticize here. Eat and move on with your life.  Men have enough burdens in their lives. If you cannot quell that burden, do not overweigh it, for Lord's sake. So, if you are asked which bloody cuisine you want, say it.    

4)    They do not give a damn: people with opinions and intellectual capacity hold back their opinion in professional or social settings because they do not care about the outcomes; they reach a level of frustration and disengagement that they lose hope and a sense of meaning in forming or exchanging idea or sharing of an opinion.

5)    They do not see a point: people sometimes do not share opinions, not because they do not trust or do not give a damn, or do not dare to speak up but because they saw from experience that sharing their opinions did not move a needle in the underlying subject. The person or audience asking for opinion may be a form of protocol, a ticking box exercise; intrinsically, the decision makers will do what they have in mind anyway. At one of the weekly meetings with the ministers, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia – His Royal Highness Mohammed Bin Salman- asked the ministers about the project's financial feasibility, and rampant silence filled the room. In the ministers' minds, maybe the Crown Prince is just asking for our opinion as a consulting phase, but he will do what he wants anyway. Then the Crown Prince told them firmly, "If I asked for your opinion, I wanted and needed to see your views, and I did not make up my mind; anyone with a contrary view, please speak up." With this point clarified, a minister freely shared his opinion with the Crown Prince that the project was not feasible and did not make economic sense. He explained his position, to which the CP agreed, and the project was rethought. "There is no opinion for those who are not obeyed or listened to" – Imam Ali Bin Abi Taleb. The natural response for these people would be, "I do not know," or silence.