According to Goffman, an “uncovering-move” is one designed to uncover factual information one feels another person may be hiding. The uncovering-move is normally deceptive in nature and is designed to assess the other person’s “true” motive for engaging in some activity. Normally an “uncovering-move” is an attempt by one partner in the relationship to gain an advantage over the other partner. In other words, it’s a “trick” move used to find out what’s “really going on” with something being covered up in the first place.
A funny thing about an “uncovering-move” is that such a move doesn’t always involve one partner “uncovering” something about the other partner in the relationship. In fact, a person can accidentally use an “uncovering-move” on their self. When a person does this, it is usually an accident. However, it is nevertheless possible to accidentally “uncover” something about your self.
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STORY:
A friend of mine suspected her husband of having an affair. She didn’t have undisputable proof that he was fooling around with another woman, but she could tell that something about their marriage was off kilter. My friend was the type that when she suspected something was amiss in her relationships, she was determined to find out what was going on. All my friend knew was that she wasn’t cheating on her husband. So she found a way to “uncover” whether or not it was he who was having an affair.
My friend’s husband was a general contractor and often purchased some of his tools from a local pawnshop. After she and her husband were married, from time-to-time, he would purchase some jewelry for her from that same pawnshop. He would often take her there to buy her a gem bracelet or a diamond ring. Because her husband frequently purchased tools from the pawnshop, the pawn staff had already gotten to know him. After taking her to the pawnshop to purchase jewelry, the pawn staff also got to know her as well.
When my friend first suspected that her husband was having an affair, she went to the pawnshop and asked the friendly pawn staff if they could provide her with a copy of her husband’s purchases so that she could prepare their joint tax return. Of course the pawn staff eagerly printed the purchase records for her.
After my friend got home, she carefully looked over the purchase invoices and noticed that her husband had recently purchased some expensive jewelry items that she never remembered receiving from him. She concluded that he must have bought those pieces of jewelry for the mistress she suspected him of keeping.
Next, my friend noticed that her husband was suddenly avoiding attending some family holiday gatherings. And since these gatherings were a long-time Hispanic family tradition, she became suspicious about why he suddenly and conveniently “felt sick” and couldn’t attend them. However, because she didn’t want to alert him to the fact that she suspected anything about his possible infidelity, she didn’t fight him about becoming “sick” during the holiday. Instead, she played along with his ruse and kept very detailed mental notes about what time she and her kids had left their house in order to attend these holiday gatherings.
After the holiday festivities had passed, my friend contacted the phone company with the stated reason that she wanted to contest their phone bill. She received a detailed phone bill for the month of December. When she looked at the detailed phone activity that had taken place on her husband’s phone, she immediately noticed that he would call his mistress only minutes after she and her kids had left their house to attend the holiday gatherings. If she and her kids had left their house at 1:00pm, the phone records indicated that her “sick” husband had placed calls to his mistress as soon as 1:05pm; shortly after she and her kids had left the house and when he figured it was safe to make such calls.
After “uncovering” a few more tidbits of evidence that pointed to the fact that her husband was cheating on her, she filed for a divorce from him. In fact, my friend used this same evidence in the divorce proceedings to win a more favorable judgment than if she had not presented such proof of her husband’s infidelity.
EXAMPLES:
April seeing the flower shop card on her boyfriend’s fireplace mantel.
Diana’s dad is seen downtown eating with “her mom.”
Pete is drunk coming home from a party. Diana asks him for details. Then she asks him for the same details the next morning.
“Are you still dating that married guy?”
“How did you know?”
“I didn’t, you just told admitted it by not asking, ‘What married guy?'”
