It’s just a question, right?

“Are you going to start that project today?”

“Will you be finishing that report before you leave?”

“When are you going to clean your room?”

Sure; they’re questions. They’re not ‘just’ questions, though. They’re carefully designed to send a message:

“I assume you’re starting that project today.”

“Plan on finishing that report before you leave.”

“You’d better be cleaning your room before I finish my sentence!”

It’s easy to kid ourselves that we’re asking an innocent question. If the other chap feels intimidated or gets the wrong impression, it’s not our fault, right?

Sure it is.

When a question begs the obvious and expected answer, we’re not really asking a question; we’re making a disguised statement or request or demand. Wording the demand as a question, with the lilting raised voice at the end and a smile on our face, does not transmogrify it into an innocent act.

If you’d like to make a statement, or feel it’s your place to make a demand, do it. Say it out loud in short simple sentences.

But don’t hide behind the passive aggression of questions that really aren’t.