My spouse used to fully support me using the “you better ask him, he’s the one paying and giving you the tip”
One time we were house-hunting and the guy we were thinking of buying from would not talk to me (sort of like the “we’re speaking Japanese” examples given). I’d ask him a question and he’d answer my husband. Or just ignore me. Finally, my spouse said “you know - she’s the one who’s going to be paying for this, you might actually want to talk to her, not me.”
Guy wouldn’t budge. Lost our sale. Might have lost others - he went out of business a year or so later.
You’re going to need a bigger boat for a strawman that size.
I’ll take your complete dodge of the question as confirmation that my guess was right. I can also see now that engaging you was apparently a complete waste of my time, so I won’t be doing that anymore. Have a nice life.
You’ve been given different perspectives, but you keep rejecting the validity of those perspectives because you, personally, don’t think certain things are a big deal.
It’s really simple. One might say its common sense:
If you offer something and that offer is explicitly rejected (for whatever reason), expect some negative consequences if you persist.
What may not be a big deal to you, may be a big enough deal to someone else. So who cares if you accepting an unwanted cookie comes easy for you? This has no bearing on anyone else’s feelings.
If someone has taken the time to make their wishes known and you disregard that because you feel you know better than they do, you might get a tongue lashing instead of gratitude. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about sex or a cookie or any other thing.
I have? Can you link the posts where I reject the validity of those perspectives? Other than the ramming a cookie down someone’s throat or long-term effects from having a door opened for you?
There isn’t a problem with the response. Like I said, Ambivalid’s experience must be very frustrating. So, he’s not wrong to react the way he did. It’s just that I suspect the intended outcome will not be achieved.
And in the mind of the other guy, his story isn’t bullshit. He got chewed out for doing what he probably genuinely thought was the “right” thing to do.
See here.https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21148587&postcount=152
By saying “I just can’t believe people let such little things as opening a door or offering a cookie bother them so much, that’s all” you are in effect invalidating other people’s perspectives. What is so hard to believe about not wanting junk food foisted on you when you’re trying to stick to a diet and being annoyed when this desire is ignored? We aren’t talking about Big Foot here.
Everyone has their pet peeves, and part of being in polite society is recognizing this. I personally hate when people poke me to get my attention. There is something animal in me that snaps when this happens and it takes a lot of self-restraint not to go off on them. If someone pokes me, I politely ask them to stop, and they don’t? They will get a lesson on correctly assessing what is a big deal or not.
Something worth pointing out: in this situation, we have Ambivalid here in the thread, discussing what he did and how he felt, etc. We are giving him feedback about his side of the situation.
That (potentially) results in people saying “hmm, maybe you could have done X or Y differently than you did”. Which, on the surface, kind of sounds like they’re saying “well, I’m offering suggestions for how Ambi could have acted differently, but not offering suggestions for how the other guy could have acted differently. That must mean I think that the other guy acted perfectly”. When in fact, it just means that the other guy isn’t here, and never will be, and thus what would be the point?
It’s 100% absolutely clear to me that the other guy should have respected Ambi’s request. It was rude of him not to. Period. If I was God and was judging people’s actions, his refusing to abide by Ambi’s request would be a (minor, on the grand scheme of things) black mark.
I think there’s an interesting discussion to be had about Ambi’s side of the interaction… but having that discussion doesn’t mean we’re ignoring or downplaying what the other guy did.
And for the record, I think that, in a perfect world, Ambi’s reaction would have been more like “Look, I really appreciate your instinct to be helpful, it’s very generous. But in this case, you’ll have to believe me that your trying to open the door for me actually makes it physically more difficult. Please respect my wishes.” or something more along those lines. Where I think he went (minorly) wrong was in starting to assign motivations and even bigotry. That (imho) made it vastly more likely that the other guy just walked away feeling insulted and angry as opposed to feeling like “hmmm, guess I learned something”.
I find your fervent insistence that it’s okay to force cookies upon people rather strange, because I work with several people who are concerned about their diets and most definitely don’t want your cookies. The idea that I, or anyone, should be able to force them to accept a cookie and then somehow not be universally considered an asshole is very strange to me.
It’s not the mere opening of a door or the offering of a cookie that bothers these people. It’s the opening of a door or the offering of a cookie after it’s been declared in no uncertain terms that it isn’t wanted.
==========================
“Glad you could join us for our cookout, happy to have you. Do you want some mac and cheese?”
“No thanks, I really don’t like it/I have celiac disease/I’m on a low-carb diet.”
“Well, I’m going to give you some anyway.”
<Smiling host then spoons a generous serving of mac and cheese onto your plate>
What’s your point? Yes, it is a recurring theme in my life, as it is in the lives of most wheelchair users/disabled people (as has been shown in this very thread). Why shouldn’t I bring up issues that aren’t right? I should just accept the unacceptable? I’m sorry I cannot live that way. I don’t even come close to even acknowledging every instance of this behavior in public, that’s the point. Every now and then, the blatant egregious nature of it is just too much. Again, what’s your point?
I’m sorry but you are totally wrong. While I appreciate you giving me an honest answer, I have to take strong issue with describing my behavior as being “intentionally rude”. I went out of my way not to communicate what I felt was essential to communicate in any way that might be perceived as rude. At least not in the way I delivered it.
While I did not “completely trash” him, the one thing that talking about this in this thread has opened my eyes to is my asserting to this guy that he was doing this “selfishly to make himself feel better, at my expense”. If I could do the whole thing over again, I would not include that part. But I did nothing close to trash the dude.
See, again, the fact is that I very seldom even let it occupy head space each and every time it happens. I learned a long time ago to “pick my battles”. If for no other reason, for my own sanity. So please understand that I do not “continue with this crisis each and every time”. If the frequency with which I engage in the topic here on the dope is what you think is “each and every time” it happens, well brother, I have some shocking news…lol.
Um…
Thank you. I didn’t think it needed explaining. The only reason I had to yell is because the dude was halfway across the parking lot when he yelled out to me about needing help. When I was talking to him at the door, I was speaking softly and calmly.
Well it’s not even so much about expecting the outcome to be all that different. It’s more about being able to live with myself. It makes more of an impact on me to “turn the other cheek” repeatedly and always when these things happen. I usually do, but I do pick my battles. And so what if this guy thinks he was doing the right thing? That was the entire reason I said what I said to him. He was not doing the right thing and I tried to the best of my ability to show him how what he was doing was in fact not the right thing. Could I maybe have done a better job, now that I am discussing the event in hindsight? Probably. But it was spur of the moment and I still think I handled myself if not well then at least decently.
Fair enough. I’ll try to be more concise in my language when I don’t understand why people feel a certain way without seeming like I am invalidating their opinion.
In my defense, I believe they don’t want junk food foisted on them and understand that, it’s the “being annoyed for more than a few minutes” that I don’t get.
It’s my impression that all the persistent annoyance described have been a result of repeated offenses - the lady who always tries to push her cookies, and of course the unending stream of ‘helpful’ people who get in the way of wheelchairs at doors.
@manson1972, this is why it isn’t about the cookie, or the door, or “helping” carry stuff. It’s dismissing the person’s views and opinions and wants and needs which have been communicated to you. It’s basically saying (subtext) “STFU, I know better than you, and this is what you’re getting!” You do that with 2-year-old children, you don’t (shouldn’t) do that to other adults. I have no doubt whatsoever that being perceived as handicapped gets you a double/triple/multiplied-by-X amount of this over what the able-bodied have to put up with. After all, “you’re handicapped, you’re obviously needy and incapable, I have to take over!”
The hard part is that pushy people or those who don’t listen or those who just can’t understand a perspective other than their own may not (IMO, probably are not) doing so with the intention of being rude and dismissive and condescending. Really, they have a handicap of their own and trying to change them or to get them to see another perspective may be a waste of time and effort. Chewing them out for their “mental blindness” may achieve nothing but telling them when they’ve crossed a line is up to the person on the other side of that line.
(As for the cookie pusher, I would put it in the bin. I’d say something like “please, no, it’ll only be wasted when somebody else could enjoy it” and if she insists on leaving it anyway, I’d then tell her that it’s going in the bin and if she still insists, or it appears on your desk, I’d stick it in the bin, right in front of her. Ambivalid only encountered that “door guy” once, daily “cookie resistance sessions” should be stopped in any way they can.)
I don’t get why you keep emphasizing “annoyed for more than a few minutes”…as if you believe I’ve been in a perpetual state of annoyance since the last time my coworker tried to force a cookie on me.
Remembering an annoying situation is not equivalent to stewing and brooding over it. It’s not like the cookie thing is the first thing on my mind every morning. I only brought up the situation here because it’s a good example of someone ignoring a firm no for their own self-centered motivation. My coworker is annoying for a number of reasons. The cookie thing is actually the mildest of those reasons.
At any rate, the cookie thing happens at least once a month. I don’t care how harmless a boundary-breech is. If it keeps happening, it’s almost certainly going to work a nerve. If she had only done it once, I wouldn’t even remember it. I’m not that petty.