SUDO make me a sandwich.
I must get that shirt!
I agree with those that defend the Frosty MIL.
I know it can be annoying when folks aren’t direct, but that is just some people’s bag. I can take a damn hint and accommodate. I happen to be a very direct person with no problem stating my wants and needs, but I bet I got all kinds of other annoying shit that people are accommodating all the time in silence.
In the end though, she is responsible for making her needs known and “Would anyone like a Frosty?” is not the same thing as saying “Would you like to go to the movies with me?” Mainly because the “with me” part is absent.
Consider:
“Would anyone like a Frosty?” vs. “Would anyone like to have a Frosty with me?”
The former can be read in the same way as:
“There’s a rest stop, anyone need to use the bathroom?”
Basically: there is an opportunity, if anyone cares to take advantage speak up.
The latter establishes a need or a preference to acquire a Frosty. It’s closer to:
“There’s a rest stop. I’ve gotta pee. Anybody else?”
Yes, a lot of older generation women were encouraged not to make a fuss, but ultimately, you can’t rely on people to read your mind if you want to be sure your needs are known.
Now I REALLY don’t want a Frosty.
My father-in-law used to constantly ask me to e-mail him pictures of our family. He’d specify what types he wanted (one of my husband by himself, our children by themselves, all of us together, etc.), then for expediency’s sake, I’d just send him a link of all our photos online at Picasa. I assumed that this fit the bill. But apparently not.
What he never told me was that the photos on Picasa weren’t high enough resolution. They get auto-converted to low resolution, making them pretty grainy when you have them printed. He’s in India, so it’s not like he could just order them on snapfish or something. It’d be incredibly expensive. What he was looking for was the original jpg or giff. Sadly, he never once asked for them that way.
He visited a few weeks ago and demanded to know why I’d never sent him pictures. I said, “Hey, I did send you pictures. Didn’t you get all the links?” “But those aren’t what I need!” he said. I looked at him blankly. “I need the actual pictures.” That didn’t tel me much, so I attempted to clarify. You can imagine how this went for a few minutes. Finally my husband stepped in and said, “Wait a minute, dad. Are you saying you need the original files?” “Yes! That’s what I’ve been saying! Why don’t you send me pictures?” 
I’m glad I wasn’t drinking one when I read that. 
My mother’s whole side of the family is like this. Or rather, her parents are like this, and they raised their kids to be like this, and my mother continued the cycle. Some of her siblings broke out of it; I spent the summer before my senior year of highschool living with my mom’s younger sister and her husband in California. One of the first things she said when I walked in the door was, “If you want something, don’t be afraid to ask for it or just get it yourself. I don’t play those [Mom’s family] games.”
You have to offer everyone something like a drink at least twice, because they’ll automatically decline the first time, even if they really want it. There’s also a lot of that bullshit roundabout “suggesting” about what they really want, with hell to pay if you don’t read their minds.
:rolleyes: This isn’t something that comes free in the back of your Vagina Manual. It’s a passive-aggressive thing. Both men and women do it. Women might do it *more frequently *in our culture because of the way we’re traditionally socialized, but it’s *not *inherent to the sex or the gender.
ETA: Most people in this thread would probably appreciate the site PassiveAggressiveNotes.com.
MichaelEmouse said:
That’s one arrangement - “two drink minimum” or whatever. But this club doesn’t use that, it has a cover charge at the door. If they had a minimum, then the waitress would have stated it (and the doorman would have stated it, too).
No, this was passive agressive shit about wanting to be my waitress to get my tip and me not complying.
I realize a lot of people drink alcohol, and like to drink alcohol while looking at naked ladies. I don’t drink alcohol, and would rather not spend 7 bucks on a bottle of water - more money to tip the dancers.
My grandmother does this and it drives me up the wall. My mom always gives in. I always play dumb and never give in. It might be mean, but oh well.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Are you thirsty?”
“No.”
“Do you need to go to the restroom?”
“No.”
“Do you need to stretch your legs?”
“No.”
If she wants to do all of these things, she can tell me and I’ll happily pull over. Until then, we’ve still got 200 miles on this tank of gas…
Well, now I want a goddamned Frosty.
You can have tdn’s.
I find that getting overly dramatic and pointing out what is obvious to everyone is another part of Womanese.
I absolutely despise this. I find it rude to keep asking someone if they want food or drink after they have refused. It feels pushy and patronizing. If I say I don’t want anything, then that’s what I mean! If I change my mind, I will let you know. If people come over and I offer them something and they say no assuming it will be offered again, they’re going to go thirsty unless they speak up. My family has plenty of other endemic passive-aggressive behaviors (i.e. offhand invitations to events that turn into somebody being horribly offended if you don’t show up to what you thought was an optional gathering of no importance from the way they phrased it), but we tend to be fairly direct about things like that.
One routine that is alternatively excruciating and hilarious to watch is a group of people trying to decide where to eat. Usually, nobody wants to be seen as imposing or bossy, so they just stand around going, “I don’t know, where do you want to eat?” for 10 minutes. My friends and I are awful with this. I’ve found that if I get fed up and just name a place, 99% of the time people will immediately agree, because nobody really has a strong preference and they are relieved to not be stuck in the loop any more.
Oh man, you and I must know the same person. My acquaintance also likes to run out of money at convenient times.
I’m convinced it’s a control thing. She has something screwed up with her ego, and she needs to make herself feel better by asking people to do unreasonable things and getting an ego boost if they do them.
No, but my parents bought a timeshare because each of them thought the other one wanted it. Neither one did. I understand my brother was finally able to offload the timeshare (he did some procedure which informed the government that mom was abandoning the property), but it took years.
OK, I don’t get this one. Is SUDO supposed to be some “Simon Says” sort of thing?
Yeah, it’s a Unix command pretty much meaning “I am important, now do what I want.”
My wife will have a conversation with my daughter, along the lines of “wouldn’t it be lovely to have an ice cream” or “oh dear, you have a soggy nappy!”, and I am expected to realise this is request directed at me to action whatever’s being discussed.
This drives me batty, especially as I’m usually engaged in something else so not really paying attention to what’s going on.
As has been observed by others, some women (me included) have a hard time overcoming that “I don’t want to be any trouble” socialization. For me, the latest episode came up on Mother’s Day. Previously, I had said something to the effect that I didn’t want any big production for the day, and that’s true: Trying to muscle your way into a crowded restaurant isn’t my idea of fun, and flowers and candy are wasted on me, and I really didn’t need or want anything major for the day. However, there’s a lot of ground between “no big production” and “bupkus,” which is what I got. A little card in recognition of the fact that I had (six weeks earlier) pushed an entire human being out of my nether regions, after nine months of nausea, heartburn, backaches, and general misery. I’m still a little pouty about that, but I can’t figure out a way to address it without seeming whiny or making my husband feel guilty. (I’m guessing that his awesome Father’s Day gift might make him rethink how we “celebrated” Mother’s Day… 
)