While most likely obvious to many many people, in my recent learnings about setting up boundaries, I've come to an epiphany:
If the answer is "no," just say so. Hedging the no-ness of the answer theoretically makes it "nicer," but really it just extends my anxiety and extends the waiting and/or confusion and/or humiliation of the receiver of the "no."
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Exhibit A:
There was this woman who started working at the bridal shop months ago now. After a few weeks, the folks in charge determined that she wasn't going to be a good fit. No one was assigned responsibility for firing her, though, so no one let her know that she was fired. She kept calling to ask when she was supposed to come in, and we kept telling her that she needed to talk to this person, to that person, to this other person, to that other person. Finally, she was told, "There's not going to be a full-time job here for you," which was even then a vague firing since there was still the specter of a part-time job, a specter everyone knew wouldn't come alive since she had been clear from the beginning that she needed full-time work.
How shitty of us -- and I'm very much rolled in to that "us." It must have been so maddening to not really know whether or not she should/could look for or accept another job. And I imagine I'd be like, "Listen, I don't give a fuck either way. Just tell me so I know."
We were too cowardly to fire her, so we let her wait around by the phone for weeks. Shitty.
Exhibit B:
I know this dude who I find fairly attractive and cool and could be interested in dating. And whenever we spent time together, I got the sense that he was interested, too, since he was real touchy-feely all the time. Finally (after a few beers), I got the courage to ask him what was going on between us, and his eyes got wide while he nodded his head back and forth, "Umm... I don't know what you're talking about."
I call bullshit.
A few days later, we talked, and I told him that if he wasn't interested, he needed to stop touching me because it was very confusing and even kinda hurtful. He went into a long-winded explanation of his interest/non-interest with lots of tangents and illustrations. I left so confused, and a little humiliated, but mostly proud of myself for voicing my "what the fuck" and setting a clear boundary in the midst of his hazy talk talk talk.
---
In the first example, I was participating in the "I feel bad firing her" thing that kinda made me feel better than I thought being direct would have, but actually just made it so that my anxiety flared up a few times a week whenever she called.
In the second example, though it took me a while to realize, he wanted to be nice and not say outright that he's not interested, but really it just made me feel kinda skeezy. In the end, it really wasn't that serious to me whether or not he was interested, and it was kind of embarrassing for him to so obviously tread so softly on my poor little feelings.
---
My mom told me this new thing she's doing wherein when someone asks her to do something or if she wants to go somewhere, and she doesn't, she just sorta tilts her head to the side and says, "Uh, no that doesn't work for me." And that's it. No explanation. Just nope.
When someone says "nope" to me -- in all kinds of contexts -- it doesn't usually hurt. Mostly it feels like, "K. Got it." And then I don't really think about it again. Because whatever.
That's the way to do it.
If the answer is "no," just say so. Hedging the no-ness of the answer theoretically makes it "nicer," but really it just extends my anxiety and extends the waiting and/or confusion and/or humiliation of the receiver of the "no."
---
Exhibit A:
There was this woman who started working at the bridal shop months ago now. After a few weeks, the folks in charge determined that she wasn't going to be a good fit. No one was assigned responsibility for firing her, though, so no one let her know that she was fired. She kept calling to ask when she was supposed to come in, and we kept telling her that she needed to talk to this person, to that person, to this other person, to that other person. Finally, she was told, "There's not going to be a full-time job here for you," which was even then a vague firing since there was still the specter of a part-time job, a specter everyone knew wouldn't come alive since she had been clear from the beginning that she needed full-time work.
How shitty of us -- and I'm very much rolled in to that "us." It must have been so maddening to not really know whether or not she should/could look for or accept another job. And I imagine I'd be like, "Listen, I don't give a fuck either way. Just tell me so I know."
We were too cowardly to fire her, so we let her wait around by the phone for weeks. Shitty.
Exhibit B:
I know this dude who I find fairly attractive and cool and could be interested in dating. And whenever we spent time together, I got the sense that he was interested, too, since he was real touchy-feely all the time. Finally (after a few beers), I got the courage to ask him what was going on between us, and his eyes got wide while he nodded his head back and forth, "Umm... I don't know what you're talking about."
I call bullshit.
A few days later, we talked, and I told him that if he wasn't interested, he needed to stop touching me because it was very confusing and even kinda hurtful. He went into a long-winded explanation of his interest/non-interest with lots of tangents and illustrations. I left so confused, and a little humiliated, but mostly proud of myself for voicing my "what the fuck" and setting a clear boundary in the midst of his hazy talk talk talk.
---
In the first example, I was participating in the "I feel bad firing her" thing that kinda made me feel better than I thought being direct would have, but actually just made it so that my anxiety flared up a few times a week whenever she called.
In the second example, though it took me a while to realize, he wanted to be nice and not say outright that he's not interested, but really it just made me feel kinda skeezy. In the end, it really wasn't that serious to me whether or not he was interested, and it was kind of embarrassing for him to so obviously tread so softly on my poor little feelings.
---
My mom told me this new thing she's doing wherein when someone asks her to do something or if she wants to go somewhere, and she doesn't, she just sorta tilts her head to the side and says, "Uh, no that doesn't work for me." And that's it. No explanation. Just nope.
When someone says "nope" to me -- in all kinds of contexts -- it doesn't usually hurt. Mostly it feels like, "K. Got it." And then I don't really think about it again. Because whatever.
That's the way to do it.
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