The most important thing for me is the content....What is the message that is being articulated.. The second important thing in case the content makes sense is the learning out of this.. If a person is emotional & sharing a pain through his message I will not go between the lines to understand what is the significance..I shall take the pain at face value If the person conveys a message which is very logical with a cause & effect relationship I just relish the logic & the message conveyed..Shall not read between the lines I read between the lines when a person is trying to convey a message indirectly -using a metaphor or euphemistically..I admire his intelligence for that.. Sorry...All these are for the first interaction that I have with the person. As soon as we understand the person (may be the person's mask as someone pointed in one of the threads) in this we start relating...Our mind has a fixed image of the person...It's quite difficult to erase it...So we read between the lines to check the message that is being conveyed.