Failures to communicate

Have you ever tried to relate to someone you can't talk to in a way that fosters mutual understanding? That's an odd question, but I frequently find myself around people I like just fine, but who I can't communicate with, to my consternation. In my experience, here are a few causes:

Their Mercury is fucked
Sometimes charts offer an easy answer as to why someone can't express themselves verbally. Retrograde Mercury conjunct Saturn in Scorpio (just to make one up) is gonna be pretty quiet. Some people are simply not good with words, so they usually find a different way to get their points across: either physical demonstrations (earth or fire motivation) or emotional undercurrents/tantrums (water motivation).

They don't have any air in their chart
I work in a low-air environment. Not literally, obviously, but there are very few air sun signs, or people who naturally exude thoughts and ideas the way air signs do. I was talking to someone a few weeks ago about what signs she would eradicate if she could, and her votes were for all the air signs (Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius, in that order). She said it like it was an obvious statement, forgetting I’m an air sign. But let me tell you: you'll miss us when we're gone! Otherwise how are you going to get new information and ideas? Air signs are also flexible: even if we don't agree with you, we can usually figure out where you're coming from. Air signs banter back and forth like verbal tennis: it's fun for us. So in my low-air environment, it's lonely, because non-air signs take you too seriously.

Low air in a chart usually indicates a resistance to input: these people know what they know and your additional thoughts are not necessary to them. Or your counterpoint is taken as an affront. And low air is not going to be excited to hear the report of all the new ideas I heard yesterday, so if I'm talking to someone with low air, I have to pick two ideas and save the other 27 for someone whose brain won't explode from being exposed to conflicting viewpoints. Also: just because I'm talking about different viewpoints on a subject doesn't mean I agree with them, which can be difficult for non-air to understand.

There are several characters who appear from time to time to antagonize the staff where I work. They obviously have emotional problems that have resulted on them being fixated on creating arguments so that they can win and feel better about themselves, but occasionally they make good points that get under the skin of my colleagues, because their emotional problems might be obvious and their methodologies might be horrible, but they're not completely wrong. Non-air is going to find a way to reject them altogether, but air signs can separate the message from the messenger. Or maybe figure out how to package the message in a more palatable way.

On a different note, a friend mine has either 5 or 6 planets in air (I don't have a birth time), and is notoriously mute. If you were to describe them in three words, "quiet" would be one of them. First issue: their sun is in a water sign. Second issue: no one else in their family has much air, so they were raised in a non-circulating environment. When they bother to write things, they're always witty, and people are usually surprised at the ideas coming out of this person, because unless you can get them talking, you don't know what's rattling around in there. Lots, actually! It's just not obvious.

Your Mercuries are incompatible
I work with someone with a Mercury that qualifies as "fucked" that is also in bad aspect to my own, and even if I think I understand what they said/what they meant to say (which are sometimes different things) I still seem to not get it. I think I'd be murdered if we ever had to play charades together, because I do not understand the hand gestures or the jokes half the time, and I'm usually pretty quick on the uptake, but not with this one! They're very nice and well-meaning and I try to be perfectly nice and well-meaning, but sometimes hours later, I realize "oh that's what they meant."

Third house issues
The third house is the communicating house (and the 7th house is the "listening house"—ever notice how some good talkers are bad listeners? Check that 7th house for lazy planets!). If they have Saturn, Neptune, or Pluto in that house, this can result in some weird communication issues. I've met SO many people with Saturn in the 3rd house who were held back a grade and have some sort of hangup about their intelligence. So that means they'd be less likely to share their thoughts (if they think they're dumb, that is). Neptune people often think they're clear when they're anything but. And Pluto in the 3rd often don't want to give away their intellectual position but are terminally curious. Tell them you have information you won't share with them at your own risk.

Additionally: your planets in their 3rd house (or on their Mercury) can be an influence: pretty much the same as listed above. Saturn can make them feel dumb. Neptune can be unclear. Pluto can be emotional hangups about what you say or how you say it.

@bennyduncx