Either out of confusion or discomfort we sometimes express our feelings in an unclear way. One key to making your feelings clear is to realize that you most often can shorten them in a few words: hurt, glad, confused, excited, angry, and so on. In the same way, with a little thought you can probably describe very briefly any reasons you have for feeling a certain way. In addition to avoiding too long expressions, a second way to prevent confusion is to avoid  _ your feelings by saying "I'm a little unhappy" or "I'm pretty excited". Of course, not all feelings are strong ones. We do feel degrees of sadness and joy, for example, but some communicators have a tendency to downplay almost every feeling. Do you? A third danger to avoid is expressing feelings in an indirect or coded manner. This happened most often when the sender is uncomfortable about showing his or her feeling in question. Some codes are verbal ones, as when the sender hints more or less subtly at the message. For example, an indirect way to say "I'm feeling lonely" might be "I guess there isn't much happening this weekend, so if you're not busy, why don't you drop by?" Such a message is so indirect that chances are small that your real feeling will be recognized. For this reason, people who send coded messages stand less of a chance of having their feeling understood and their need met. Finally, you can express yourself clearly by making sure that both you and your partner understand that your feeling is centered in a specific set of environments rather than being indicative of the whole relationship. Instead of saying "I hate you", say "I hate you when you don't keep your promises"'. Rather than "I'm bored with you", say "I'm bored when you talk about your money." The writer points out that if we express our feelings in a coded manner   _
we will make them harder to be understood we will feel all the more confused we will feel uncomfortable we will make the listener uncomfortable