This interaction happened on my Facebook feed. I’m going to give them names just to make it easier to discuss.
John posts that he’s at a relatively famous greasy spoon well known for yummy but terrible for you burgers, fries etc. Ringo posts in the comments, “I’ll take a burger, fries and a coke.” It’s a pretty common, almost hacky, joke that almost everybody gets in their comments in a similar situation.
So John, rather than just laugh and continue with his life, posts. “I’m gonna order it for you.” Ringo assuming like everyone else would that he’s joking back, posts something like, “ha ha!”. John answers with “I’m ordering it now.” Ringo, trying to deescalate the weird situation he’s now in says, No, I appreciate it but I’m not home." John counters with “Tell me where you are and I’ll bring it to you. I’m paying for it right now.” Ringo basically has to say No thanks again and John replies, “Fine” and then posts a picture of a burger, fries and a soda in a garbage can.
I was thinking to myself what a giant asshole John was. That whole thing was just so he could make himself into a victim when he was actually causing an awkward interaction that didn’t have to happen. I could hear him say to himself, “Here I go and do something nice and that Jerk doesn’t appreciate it!” when the reality is he was the Jerk and he dragged Ringo into his mopey “woe is me” head games.
So yeah, those, “I was just trying to do you a favor”, jerks are the worst. Do you know anyone like that?
I have known people who were like that, more or less, in that they force friendship on you and get ugly if you aren’t interested. They prey on normal people’s politeness to push themselves on you.
I think the best way to handle them is to call them out on it. “Wow, that was weirdly passive-aggressive. Fuck off.” LOL.
He probably also makes people apologize over and over for some imagined misdeed. I recall someone getting really pissed when I said “I’ve already apologized once and won’t do it a second time.”
Once we had to do a road trip together. We arrived at the site early and the coworker hadn’t eaten breakfast, so we decided to swing by Subway. She gets in line and insists I join her.
Me: “No, I’m good. I had breakfast already.”
Coworker: “Get whatever you want. My treat.”
Me: “I’m still stuffed from breakfast. I’m fine, I promise.”
Coworker: “Look, they have cookies. I know how much you like cookies. How many do you want?”
Me: “It’s nine o’oclock in the morning! I don’t need or want any cookies. Please don’t get me anything.”
Coworker (to the server behind the counter): “Please give me six of those cookies.”
I was pissed off at her the rest of the day. I should have thrown them straight in the garbage can, but instead I gave them away the moment we got to the meeting.
This isn’t “aggressively nice” since that person would have delivered the burger anyway. This smacks of manipulative control freak. That said, the hackneyed joke can be (very) mildly annoying, maybe because it is so commonly made.
Oh gawd. I get so many “aggressively nice” people sticking their nose in my business so often it almost doesn’t even register anymore. “Ohh, it’s ok, I just figured I could help.” This, or some close approximation of it, is the response I get from people who hear me say “no thanks” when asked if I need a hand with the door and simply do it anyway.
I have gradually become aware over the years, that there are actually a surprising number of genuinely insane people walking the streets and interacting with us all the time.
Granted, most of them are harmless enough. Just crazy enough to insist on things like this, or to get ten degrees too upset when their sports team loses, or even to overly effusive in their sincere thanks, nearly to the point of panic, when you do them some small favor.
But nuts is nuts, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s always off-putting.
Whenever I delivered pizza to an office building, someone (e.g. in the elevator) would “joke” that the pizza was theirs, or ask if I had any “extra slices.” I heard this dozens if not hundreds of times. I never opened the box, took out a slice and demanded that the jokester take it. Never once shoved a steaming, gooey wedge in his stupid face as he backed against the wall, visibly nervous, looking around frantically for the emergency call button. That would’ve been crazy.
There’s an interesting bit in The Screwtape Letters that probably applies here - about people, under the guise of ‘being nice’ are actually exerting control over others - I can’t remember the precise examples, but one of them was something like a person asking for some absurd customised meal not by stating their actual requirements, but by arguing that the meal already provided was too good for them.
I remember the passage about as well as you do; I think that the person, according to Lewis, was “offended” at seeing more food than they wanted at that particular time, and so used that “Oh, no, that’s too much! All I need is…” dodge, and then described in detail how to make something smaller but that would take the host or hostess additional time and trouble to make.
He also wrote about an old lady who always got her toast and tea, but complained that “nobody could make it properly anymore,” not realizing that age had probably altered her sense of taste so much that she couldn’t have recognized well-made tea and toast if it WERE served to her. As you noted, it’s a control game.
I do a ton of catering into office type buildings and get those ‘jokes’ all the time. Random people walking through the hallways will joke that the food is ‘theirs’ and jokingly ask me to just bring it to their car or something like that. Sure, funny the first time, but I’ve heard it, literally, thousands of times. Like, I’ve been doing this for over 10 years and get that comment at least twice a day.
One person, however, took it too far. I’m in a very busy place with winding hallways an no good way to find my way around. Someone ducked out of an office, made eye contact with me (very common) and I asked if I was bring the food in there, she said yes, I brought it in. After about 5 or 10 minutes she came in and told me she was joking. I packed the stuff back up, told her that how rude that was, how late I now was, and headed back into the hallway to figure out where I needed to get to.
In this very, very busy place, turns out the room was a conference room within an office. I didn’t have a chance of finding it on myself. I was lucky to bump into someone that pointed me in the right direction.
My rule of thumb is that if you think of something clever to say and you’re about to say it to someone that works in retail and speaks with hundreds of people a day, they’ve probably heard it plenty of times and probably already that day. IOW, that joke you like to tell cashiers and waitstaff and bartenders, it’s not the first time they’ve heard it and they’d like to keep moving forward with their day.
His point was that people who acted that way, with an inconveniencing focus on food and what they wanted to eat (no matter how “little”) - rather than on what was being served - were committing the sin of gluttony as surely as someone who overeats.
True, but IME ‘how long does it take you to sit down’ is usually a new one. I do keep it to myself for the reasons stated above, but the two or three times I’ve said it, they haven’t heard it. I don’t remember where I picked it up, it was on a TV show I think.
And, as long as we’re starting to head in that direction, I brought up beards and the unsolicited comments in the other thread, but, at least ask if you’re going to touch it. Mine’s long enough that people like to run their fingers through it and are typically surprised that it’s soft. Also, when I used to cut my hair just shy of being shaved I’d have people, even strangers touching/rubbing my head. Thanks, don’t do that.
And to answer your question(s), the beard doesn’t really keep me warm (or make me hot in summer), my head gets really cold in winter with no hair if there’s any kind of breeze.
Is it possible John has Asperger’s, or some other affliction that makes him incapable of correctly interpreting sarcasm or jokes? Because that is decidedly not normal behavior.
I think that sometimes these moments of “helpfulness” really are just a big FU to a hackneyed joke. God knows, I get tired of hearing the, “Is that for me? Thanks!” joke when I’m bringing some pizza into the office.
This “aggressively nice” behavior is present among some Asian cultures, typically also among some people in their 40s-60s, and if you decline, no matter how politely, you are a jerk.
I used to have a narcissistic friend who would make a big deal about getting over-the-top gifts and stuff then always bringing it up over and over. It was a control thing, and I called out the bullshit once. He got all butt-hurt and stopped being my friend.