When saying “no” gets complicated
We’re told time and time again to say no to things we don’t want to do, right? It’s good for us! It’s healthy.
Yes. It so totally is. I don’t always want to leave the comfort of my home. And I really wouldn’t want to leave it to do something I wish I would have said “no” to doing in the first place. Ha ha.
But I was thinking about saying no to things. How often, when you say no, do you give the real reason you are saying no? And how often do you give a partial truth or make an excuse? Or, just say “no”?
Ha. So I realized today, when Jen2 asked me if I wanted to do one of those mud runs next year, and I responded to her with “that’s not my thing, but thanks for asking,” that that might not be the response I would give everyone. As in, I might decline someone else, but not tell them it’s because I don’t want to do a mud run*, probably, ever. I think I would just say no. Which is completely fine. But why did I feel like giving Jen2 the extra info? Because I feel comfortable with her? Because I want her to know that about me?
She didn’t mean this kind of mud run!
No, is no. No reason required. “I don’t want to” is enough. But… I was just thinking about it, because I feel like I say no a lot. I get in to phases where I am away from my home way too much, and I try to be conscious of that and not say yes to every invite that comes my way. Of course, after being off work from so long, and at home so much, it feels weird to go out. I am sure that will go away soon!
*I mean organized mud run, not a trail run.
Themocracy
hmmm. Well I like to explain a bit esp when it comes to those mud runs. I’ve watched my husband do it, and read the stories about injuries (thanks to blogging!) and watched all those rash reports from this past summer (eek!) so I’m still in the no camp on those. No desire. I used to explain why I wouldn’t do a ram racing event like Hot Chocolate (total bad race reports on how they have been run) so now I will get to see first hand how they go and if they were worth it and not on my dime 😉
Do you think you said that because you didn’t want her to feel like she should ask you every time? Now that you’ve told her you have no interest in those at all she won’t have to worry about asking you in the future. It seems like you should definitely tell someone the real reason if it’s about something that could come up again, as opposed to helping with a one-time event. For instance, people shouldn’t ask me to go scuba diving because it freaks me out. And I would tell them that when I said no. But if they asked me to help with a project and I was busy or they asked me to an event and I didn’t want to go I would just say no without any extra explanation.
That could be it! I didn’t even think of that. 🙂
It’s a female thing. Women are socialized to explain themselves; men are not. I see it all the time in the workplace. My business client says “no” and that’s that. I say “no” and there’s a look from the other side, as if waiting for me to say something else. Sometimes I do; sometimes I don’t. I’ve learned with women, I better say the second part lest I’ll be classified as a b*tch. With men, they’re fine with a simple no.
Oh gosh. I bet it totally is. Along with saying sorry. BARF. If you say it so much… it doesn’t mean anything. Sidetracked: sometimes I just want a real sorry.
Yeah, I think it’s partially socialization and being overly polite. But I also sometimes explain myself b/c I’m afraid if I don’t give a reason eventually people will stop inviting me to do stuff! And I think I also want to emphasize it’s not that I don’t want to spend time with “YOU” (general you), it’s just that I don’t want to do that particular thing.
I think sometimes we explain our reasoning, in order to try and not hurt the person’s feelings…Hey, I don’t want to do a mud run because I simply have no desire to have mud coming out of my ears for 2 weeks, vs. plain NO, shows the person you appreciate the invite, yet have a reason for not wanting to accept…
This was timely, Kim, because I just had to say no to two people wanting my involvement with projects related to my work. I was advised to just tell them I was busy, but I decided I wanted to be honest and just say frankly that I thought their project was great but it was too out of scope for me and I didn’t feel like I should get involved. Still not sure how that’s going to go over! But I feel like if you are honest people know you’re always going to be upfront with them, and that should count for something.
Oh gosh, and YES, especially be honest at work! Gah. For awhile I kept getting asked to work on projects that were WAY over my head. And… not in the sense that I could learn by working on them, but that I would be faking it. I tried to tell them that!
Interesting discussion here! One thing I learned from years of watching Oprah was if you want to say no to something and you don’t want to have to give an explanation, just say “That doesn’t work for me.” I occasionally use this.
Saying no is a skill a lot of us (mostly women) have to learn as adults, because we were socialized to always be pleasant and agreeable and therefore say yes to other people’s demands and requests, unless we had a compelling reason. We grew up with the feeling that it is not ok to say no just because we don’t want to do something – we have to justify it.
I always feel the need to over explain, too. I’m also not ever going to do a mud run (or a color run, or a foam run, or any of that).
There’s a lot of research on invitation behavior in linguistics, and it’s pretty interesting. In politeness theory, there’s this concept of “preserving face,” and one way that we do this is by avoiding flat out refusals to requests. Like, if I say “Could you help me?” if you just say “no,” it makes the situation a bit awkward, so most of the time, people give a reason like, “No, I’m busy that day. I’m sorry!” to “save face.” I guess that’s why a lot of people give a reason, whether it’s the real reason or not….? Or that’s one theory, anyway. It’s nice that you can just be straightforward though and say that mudruns aren’t your thing!
That is probably TOTALLY it. I just don’t want to appear to be a huge byotch, or that I don’t want to spend time with the person, as others mentioned. Did the discussion of that go in to gender at all?
I have a hard time saying no, especially with work right now (hence all the extra hours) and usually feel like I need a good reason to tell them no rather than just saying I need a day off so I usually say I will do it unless I legitimately have plans. This is definitely something I need to work on.