The word that keeps a door open

Two neighbours disagree about the new barber on their street. One says: he is overpriced. The other bristles, because she sends her son there, and within a minute they are defending positions instead of talking about haircuts.

Replay it with one small change. He seems overpriced to me.

The facts have not moved. The opinion is the same. But the sentence now does something different. It admits that it comes from a particular place: one person, one visit, one bill. It leaves room for someone who stood somewhere else to describe what they saw. Perhaps she knows he trained for years before opening. Perhaps she goes on weekday mornings, when he charges less. Perhaps she has never looked at the price at all, and now will.

A flat statement invites a flat reply. Say something as a fact and the other person has two choices, agree or resist, and most people with any pride will resist. The exchange becomes a contest with a winner, and the winner learns nothing.

A softer verb turns it into a comparison of views from different seats. That is not weakness, and it is not hedging for the sake of manners. It is an accurate description of what an opinion is: how something looks from where one person happens to be standing.

The question folded inside that small word is the one that makes the conversation worth having. From where you are, what can you see that I have missed?