I am that one freakazoid left who always tries to assign good intent to the actions of others so I would be thankful. The danger more would be that you would get weirded out coming across an actual tombstone and what looks like a grave in my lawn.
You have to think about how things look to other people. You know what your intentions were and know you had no sinister motives. But she doesn’t know what’s inside your head. For all she knows, you’re a stalker.
Fine if you never mention it and it never comes up. But, if she brings it up and is at all freaked out about it, or if she asks if you did it, you need to tell her. You can say something like, “I did it trying to do something nice, but some friends set me straight about it not being appropriate. I know it was a mistake, and I won’t do anything like that again.” Then you accept whatever feedback she wants to give about it, and be prepared not to be friends anymore. But the creepiness will go up a thousand fold if she talks about being freaked out by it, or asks, and you say nothing.
You’d better put that grass back immediately, mister!
My lawnmower is broken as well. Just saying, since you are in the giving spirit and all…
ETA: silliness aside, I cannot understand for a second all of the responses in this thread. If someone wants to come cut my grass, have at it. If they had jimmied the lock on the front door to clean up or something, I would see the problem with such an intrusion, but to do something on the outside? Hell yeah. Siding needs power washed as well.
I’d be creeped out as well. I’ve only known one person I’d consider to be a stalker, and she regularly looked up people on public record databases. I don’t need to know if one of my coworkers got a speeding ticket in 2010, much less if they have any more serious offences.
When I was young, yes we used to shovel the snow from our elderly neighbors sidewalk. Not only did it help me get to school and avoid stomping through snow, but it wasn’t like we tried to hide it.
Nice thought and it sounds like you meant well, but most likely she will be creeped out by this.
What the others said: It was a nice gesture but you should have asked or suggested it to her first.
I think it was kind of you to do this but also a bit tone-deaf.
However, it is just grass.
I have some weedy trees on the side of my house. I kind of like them because they give me some privacy while I am doing stuff in my backyard, but they can get a bit overgrown. I put it on my May to-do list to trim them but I kept putting it off.
One day I am tooling around in the backyard and I discover that someone clipped my weedy trees quite severely, reducing my privacy by 50%. That bugged me some. But I was also glad that I was off the hook for more yardwork. And then I felt embarrassed wondering if my neighbor had done it out of frustration over me not keeping my “shrubbery” as neat as he keeps his.
About a week after the fact I realized that the power company had trimmed trees all throughout the neighborhood. Even though my trees weren’t technically in the right-of-way, they were still pretty close. The contractor probably figured they would be nice and trim those bad boys for me. I am glad that’s all it was, because otherwise I would still be having some negative feelings.
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Ever heard the phrase, “Maybe your purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others”? Not only will it not be deleted, the thread will likely become a frequently cited example of good guy stalking. You’re practically in meme territory here, LiveFree.
That’s not cool.
I mean, clearly, the fact that you made a thread about this means you did at the very least think that in the back of your head this could be considered a bit creepy, no? Why didn’t you ask before you did it?
Get over it LiveFree you did a nice gesture. I believe your heart was in a good place.
Don’t know why these folks are upset.
But then, thankfully I don’t live in their world.
You know it’s possible both to have your heart in a good place and to have done something creepy.
Given the option, I’d have voted both. But I had to go with creepy because that far outweighs the nice.
Then, there’s always that one person who just doesn’t get it.
I may have missed this point, but you cut the lawn with, I suppose, your own lawnmower. Which you must have somehow got to her place.
So, why didn’t you instead offer to cart her lawnmower off to the shop (and pick it up later) instead of just cutting her lawn?
You live in the same world as the rest of us. It’s the world where the vast majority of people are friendly and nice. And a few people are Ed Gein.
Believe me, it is an honor to be in this group.
The OP asked a question. I took him at his word and answered honestly. If he didn’t already know how this would come across, he needed to know. “Upset” doesn’t come into this.