Hermeneutic Labor Definition In Dating According To Experts

Akua K. Boateng, a psychotherapist in private practice in south Philadelphia, sees hermeneutic labor as a rite of passage for young women, especially in the text-centric online dating era. Generally speaking, women often let men take the lead in such communication. 

“If he is texting, she is texting ― even if she might desire to talk by phone ― while talking with her friends about what the frequency or tone of his texts might mean about his true intentions,” Boateng said.

Women are conditioned to do this, Boateng thinks. For some, this kind of close reading starts in childhood with decoding the emotional lives of fathers and male figures. 

“Many women have a history of failed attempts to track the emotional impact of life on the men in their social world,” she said. “Dating is a repeat of this past.”

Jennifer Chappell Marsh, a marriage and family therapist in San Diego, California, often hears women lament hermeneutic labor when they bring up emotionally distant partners.

“In therapy, it often shows that she’s putting in a lot of effort to understand his feelings and needs by paying close attention to small things like how he moves, the tone of his voice, or the words he chooses,” she said. 

As a marriage therapist, Chappell Marsh sees firsthand how men benefit from the proactive women they know: the wives who can read their husbands’ body language or tone of voice like a book, the girlfriends who psychoanalyze the punctuation of their boyfriends’ texts over dinner with the girls. 

“All this work can make the relationship stronger because it helps with communication, but it’s important to remember that this effort by women should be appreciated and not just expected,” Chappell Marsh said. 

Another therapist, Sarah Spencer Northey in Washington, D.C., said she’s seen  hermeneutic labor play out with her clients, but not to a problematic level. 

“As a therapist, I’m usually shutting down a long, drawn-out analysis by immediately emphasizing a need for clarity,” she said. “I would not want someone to give their therapy time away to someone who is being cryptic over text.”

Northey notes that there are times where analyzing texts with friends can be a lighthearted way of bonding for women. (If you’re a guy receiving a text back, it’s fair to expect that the response might have been dictated by a committee of  five women you’ve never met, plus your date.) 

“It’s helpful and fun to discuss your dating life with others and as long as you are getting the benefit of further insight, or at least a few giggles with friends,” Northey said. 

Naming a process helps us tame a process, Spencer Northey said, so she appreciates that the concept has been named in academic study.

How to improve communication when hermeneutic labor is a problem