You are sitting on the sofa in the evening after a day full of challenges. A thought passes through your head to ask about something fundamentally important, yet for fear of provoking a needless conflict, you stay silent. The fear of being accused of prying effectively takes away your voice, and beginning serious subjects “out of nowhere” simply seems unnatural. To bypass this paralyzing fear, the psychology of communication suggests an extraordinarily elegant solution: shifting responsibility onto an external object.
Why are we afraid to ask?
Silence in a relationship is rarely proof that we have nothing to say to each other; far more often it is simply a defense mechanism. Researchers of communication have described this as conflict avoidance: partners keep to themselves the matters they would rather speak about, so as not to disturb the peace of the present evening.
Frustrations passed over in silence do not disappear but mutate into distance and coldness. The absence of open dialogue builds invisible walls, through which partners fall into the destructive “it will work out” trap. Breaking the silence requires a delicacy that is missing in a direct verbal clash. When you look a partner in the eye and ask a sensitive question, it is easy to receive it as a camouflaged test – and then the first answer is a defense, not an answer. Mastering the art of asking questions without imposing an opinion is extraordinarily hard then.
A ritual free of fear
A physical alibi is a discreet object that takes upon itself the burden of initiation. When you read out the text from a drawn card, a powerful change of dynamics occurs. It is no longer you who are prying; you gain an elegant excuse, communicating soundlessly that it is the card that dictates the subject. Thanks to this you can both lean over the problem shoulder to shoulder. It was with this psychological intention that we designed the brand Odoardo Alibi™. A box of solid oak conceals 50 deep questions for your partner, which strike straight at your most important needs. The same mechanism works outside the home – in a hotel lounge, of which we write in the text The lounge in a luxury hotel and spa.
To eliminate the fear of running out of words, the process of answering is supported by the choice of abstract Geometric Noir illustrations, which makes use of the meaning of silence and image in communication. This allows active listening in a relationship to be put into effect within safe rituals for couples.
Anchoring the senses in quiet luxury
The success of every sincere conversation depends, however, in large measure on the environment. The noise of electronics brutally destroys our capacity for concentration. The balance between engineering and craft is defined by the creator of the Odoardo™ ecosystem:
“In a world where algorithms fight ceaselessly for a fraction of our attention, real closeness has become the highest luxury. To hold a deep conversation, it is worth putting the screens aside and anchoring our senses in noble, physical matter.”
The space around you must favor that quietening. It is worth reaching for a cyclical interior metamorphosis without renovation based on the collection from Odoardo Art™ and for the screenless solutions of Odoardo Soul™, described in the text Quiet luxury and contemporary technology. A harmonious arrangement, joined with the weight of the solid oak box of Odoardo Alibi™, calms the senses and raises the chance of a sincere conversation between the two of you.
Why we decided to hand the initiative to an object we explain in the manifesto.
Odoardo Soul™
Odoardo Art™
Odoardo Lens™
Odoardo Space™
