By U Khin Maung Myint
Within Burmese families and communities, the expression “မတဲ့ဘူး” is frequently used to describe two people who cannot get along. It may sound like an innocent description of personality incompatibility, yet psychologically it can conceal a more complex interpersonal process. There is also an intriguing linguistic metaphor. တဲ့ can carry a sense associated with being straight, aligned or fitting, while မ negates it. Without claiming this as the literal etymology of the idiom, မတဲ့ဘူး can therefore be read philosophically as something no longer aligning. The important question then becomes: What has become misaligned – the people, or the truth between them? Social intelligence is not simply the ability to be pleasant. It involves accurately reading social situations, appreciating another person’s perspective, regulating emotional reactions, communicating differences and maintaining workable relationships despite disagreement. The socially intelligent person does not necessarily like everyone; rather, they can coexist constructively with people they do not naturally like. Problems arise when “သူနဲ့ ငါ မတဲ့ဘူး” – “he and I cannot get along” becomes a final diagnosis rather than the beginning of inquiry. Psychology suggests several mechanisms that can transform ordinary disagreement into enduring hostility. Fundamental attribution error encourages us to explain another person’s behaviour as a defect of character while explaining our own behaviour by circumstances. Confirmation bias then selectively notices evidence supporting our existing dislike. Memory itself is reconstructive, meaning that sincere people can remember the same encounter differently. A small disagreement can consequently develop into a predictable sequence: Difference → misunderstanding → emotional reaction → labelling → avoidance → gossip → further misunderstanding → “မ တဲ့ဘူး.” This becomes particularly problematic when communication occurs through third parties. A tells C about B; C interprets and validates A’s account; B develops another version; gradually social alliances form around competing narratives. What began as an interpersonal disagreement becomes a breakdown of shared reality. This is especially relevant in cultures where maintaining harmony, hierarchy, respect and အားနာမှု are highly valued. These are important social virtues, but excessive reluctance to discuss disagreement directly can allow grievances to accumulate beneath an apparently peaceful surface. Thus, the underlying problem is not necessarily deliberate dishonesty. မမှန်ဘူး may represent misinformation, misunderstanding, selective memory, assumptions, exaggeration or unconscious cognitive distortion. People can therefore become enemies while each remains convinced that their own account is entirely truthful. Perhaps we should therefore reconsider what we mean when we say မတဲ့ဘူး. Instead of asking only, “Why can’t these two people get along?”, social intelligence asks: What actually happened? What did each person hear? What was assumed rather than verified? Has either person spoken directly to the other? And how much of today’s hostility belongs to yesterday’s unexamined story? A psychologically mature community does not require universal agreement.
It requires the capacity to verify before judging, clarify before condemning, disagree without dehumanising, and preserve truth even when relationships become difficult. Perhaps, then, the deeper Burmese question is: မတဲ့ တာရဲ့ အောက်မှာ မမှန်တာ ရှိနေသလား။ Beneath “we cannot get along,” is there something that is not true? For ultimately, လူမတဲ့တာထက် အမှန်မ တဲ့တာက ပိုကြောက်စရာကောင်းတယ် — more troubling than people failing to align with one another is truth itself becoming misaligned.
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