What Men Say When They Don't..... "I Thought We Were on the Same Page" by Julianna Rowe

 

A series on language, clarity, and the quiet announcement people make before they disappear. Hosted on?  The Happy News Lady

While these pieces focus on men, the language of avoidance isn’t gendered. Anyone whose disappeared will recognize it.

“I Thought We Were on the Same Page”

“I thought we were on the same page,” he says, as if a page was ever shown, discussed, or agreed upon. It sounds reasonable. Even disappointed. Like a misunderstanding instead of an omission. But being on the same page requires that a page actually exist. This phrase often appears when expectations were assumed instead of communicated, when boundaries were implied instead of stated, and when silence was mistaken for agreement. 

“I thought we were on the same page” usually means: I made decisions privately and expected you to keep up. There was no conversation outlining expectations. No shared understanding of direction. No mutual agreement about what this was becoming. Just movement. Time passing. Access continuing. And now, suddenly, you’re told you misunderstood. Men use this phrase to reposition responsibility…away from the lack of clarity and onto your interpretation.

If you’re confused, it’s because you didn’t read the page correctly. If you’re hurt, it’s because you expected too much. But expectations don’t form in a vacuum. They grow from behavior, consistency, and what’s left unsaid. You didn’t imagine the closeness. You didn’t misread the effort. You didn’t invent the signals that led you to believe you were building toward something shared. You responded to what was happening.

“I thought we were on the same page” often arrives when someone wants to step back without acknowledging that they never invited you into the planning. It’s a convenient way to say, “I decided something on my own, and now I’m surprised you didn’t anticipate it.”

But shared pages require shared authorship. If the expectations were never discussed, never clarified, and never agreed upon, then there was no page to be on.

There was only assumption. And asking for clarity is not proof that you misunderstood. It’s proof that the communication was incomplete. So, when someone tells you, “I thought we were on the same page…..”

Ask yourself whether a page was ever offered…or whether you were expected to read between lines that were never written. Because misunderstanding doesn’t come from asking questions. It comes from pretending communication happened when it didn’t.

exposes a subtle blame-shift phrase

assumption vs communication appears grounded, not defensive

Tomorrow: “I’ll Call You”