“I know people are being nice, but it gets frustrating always being offered help when I can do it myself”.
That is an honest and legit topic. I was on crutches for a year. And even I got frustrated at having to say thank you dozens of times a day as people helped me. They were being nice. I was being impatient. But it was a real feeling that I needed to emote to someone, somewhere, so I could keep perspective and not get overly bitter. And that was only for 1 year and I knew it would be over. I can have empathy for someone who is competent having to face that forever and can imagine why they might want to vent even irrational frustration.
But no. He wants to believe these are actual slights and that the defect is on the part of people offering to help rather than admit it gets frustrating even though he knows they really aren’t doing anything wrong. Just to get a little support and sympathy for himself, which would be totally legit.
One: he was being kind and helpful, offering assistance to another human being
Two: he was wanting to make the point that the door should be closed. I’ve often seen this in American culture where, instead of making a statement like ‘This door should be closed’, they will take a more passive approach, like saying ‘Do you want me to close this door?’
I will now read the thread to see how wrongly I’ve interpreted it.
That was much more elegant then what I was going to say which was…
Ahh, but don’t forget your earlier quote…
And always remember, you too don’t know what other people think. You have a bad habit of deciding what other people are thinking. It’s not fair that you get to do that about others but others can’t do it about you.
In just about every thread like this you’re always telling us what other people were thinking while they were doing things and just one time someone mentioned what you were thinking and you made that statement.
Yeah, I’m gonna toss that one back at you a few more times unless you stop telling us what other people are thinking.
I’m usually thinking about 10 things at once, so a stranger might get 5% of my attention. I guess I never considered that my offer of help would be perceived as rude. There’s just never going to be a day where I stop, completely focus on a stranger’s needs, assess their perceptions on my offer of help and consider various scenarios on the outcome just to hold the damn door for them. It’s likely I am hauling butt to get gas/get groceries/get home/make dinner/everything else. Sorry, but strangers barely show up on my radar.
So if someone started a thread that went like this:
Hi, I have stage 3 lung cancer and I was standing in hospital hallway and this guy I know said “Hi John, how are you today”…why would he ask me a question like that?
About half of the comments are going to be “He was just being nice, don’t read so far into it” and the other half are going to be “It was just a random pleasantry and he didn’t mean anything at all by it”
Now how would you feel if the OP if this hypothetical thread came back and said "Oh, I wasn’t offended at all, I know he was just being nice, I was just wondering why people feel the need to say “Hi, how are you today” to every person they happen to see. It doesn’t have anything to do with the cancer. I just want to know why everyone always has to exchange pleasantries all the time.
At least that’s what I’m getting out of it.
But I’m probably wrong. Perhaps you could re-write the OP and explain it a bit better.
My reaction to that would be “Why would you even start a thread like that?” and that’s my reaction to this. You very clearly said the entire back and forth was nice and pleasant but for some reason you still had to start a thread about it. Either you can’t work under the assumption that some people like to be nice to other people (handicapped or otherwise) or you just need the attention.
He was either trying to be helpful and just phrased it poorly or was being sarcastic about you letting the steam out. His tone would determine what he meant.
Yup. It had little to nothing to do with your wheelchair; he probably would have said the same thing if you’d been standing there, leaning against the door with your arms crossed. I bet you any amount of money he was not thinking, “Guy sitting and relaxing… in a wheelchair!!! OMG, he must need my help!!!” He was probably thinking something more along the lines of “WTF? Dude, the door closes automatically for a reason. It’s supposed to be closed, and here you are holding it open. Is there some kind of problem with either you (maybe… you’re in a wheelchair…) or the door, or are you doing this for a reason, or are you just being an inconsiderate dick, or… fuck it; I’ll just ask if you need help closing it. That way, if you’re *not *just being a dick, I can either help with the problem, or you can tell me what the hell you’re doing, and if you are being a dick, we can escalate this as necessary.”
If you weren’t offended why even post about this incident? You say it’s because you found it humorous but it’s not even that. It’s like when someone comments on your child’s behavior and then when you apologize they say ,“No, that’s OK, it was cute”.
It’s such a not noteworthy event, practically the equivalent of someone saying “Hi” as they pass you in the hall. You posted this to make a point and some of us are apparently missing what that is.
When I was a little kid visiting the Buffalo Children’s Zoo, I watched a tapir eat a carrot, develop an erection, step on its dick, lose the erection, eat another carrot, develop another erection, step on its dick, lose the erection, eat another carrot, develop another erection, step on its dick, lose the erection, eat another carrot . . .
IMHO, I think that the OP is trapped in this sort of a cycle when it comes to his thread pattern.
Ok, I see this was stupid and a mistake-the same people and the same shit keeps happening.
I absolutely did not see his actions as rude. I hope you all are reading this. I did not see his actions or his question as rude. WHATSOEVER. Are we clear?
I had no issue whatsoever with him asking me if I needed help in this situation. Are we clear? None. Whatsoever. I get asked this question everywhere I go with everything I do; I’m used to it and I expect it. It’s no big deal.
What I have been writing about here in relation to this incident was the seeming nonsensical nature of this man’s question. Are you all reading this? This was a man totally familiar with the surroundings of the locker room; including the steam room and it’s door. When he saw me sitting there propping it open; which admittedly was probably an uncommon sight for this man, rather than simply inquire if I needed any sort of help with anything, he asks me if I need him to close the door for me.
I was curious as to his thought process here. It wasn’t some rushed, guy flying past and just glances my way type of incident. This man was slowly walking by and I became visible as soon as he appeared at the end of the hallway. It was funny to me. If some of you are going to discount what I say in this thread and rather base your opinions on actions/behaviors I have engaged in in other threads; well so be it. I can’t help you.
And yes, I feel this man was an example of the mindset I detailed earlier. That changes nothing as to the humor I found in the exchange I had with him. By the way, in an earlier post in this thread, I said that if more people in the world were of the ilk of this man, the world would probably be a better place. If I had any sort of problem with this, would I say such a thing?
I am finished with this. I would like to see the mods close this, the familiar pattern is emerging.
It wasn’t stupid it was, I don’t know, strange. It seems to boil down to “Someone offered me help, what could he have meant by that???”
But here’s the thing (and we seem to touch on this in every “Jamie thread”). Other people are not all knowing. They can’t read your mind. Other people have no way of knowing that you don’t need help. They cannot possibly tell without asking you. That is the only way they can find out if the person sitting there with the steam room door propped open needs help. Can you offer up a better way. Perhaps you should hang a sign around your neck that says “Don’t talk to me” or “Bites when provoked”
No you weren’t. You told us earlier what he was thinking. You already had you’re mind made up about it.
No one else get’s to chose when their threads are closed. You shouldn’t be able to either. But if you stop starting the same thread over and over the same patterns won’t emerge.
Best we can do is give our perspectives. Most people are saying that there is no “mindset”, just someone thinking they are being helpful, in a very general sense. We have no way of knowing what his “mindset” was based on what you described, and frankly, you probably don’t either.
Again, you asked what we make of it. Most of us are saying that we make very little of it. Regardless of what you thought the situation was HE clearly thought it warranted asking if you need the door closed. You presume to conclude WHY he needed to ask that but react negatively to us presuming why he needed to ask, since it differs from you.
You keep characterizing the situation as “uncommon” or strange, but I agree with others here that he wanted you to shut the door. It wasn’t just strange, there was an active error that needed correcting. That is, steam rooms are designed to keep the steam in, and you were letting it all out. He was probably LESS of a dick because of your wheelchair, but for once, I think you’ve actually posted a scenario where someone intended, however meekly, to be confrontational.
But the door closes by itself. And the man was quite aware of this. That is the main crux of my confusion and amusement, not why he thought I needed assitance in general.
The situation was a little out of the ordinary.
You acknowledge that you were a little confused.
That’s all there may be to it, really.
That other guy was a little confused also, seeing what he saw.
You’ve acknowledged that too. He just wasn’t sure what to make of the situation.
So he didn’t know quite what to ask.
So he made the choice to ask something.
Like that nearby thread in GQ with some Quantum Physics questions about the Higgs boson, that I wanted to ask about, but could barely figure out an intelligible question to ask. So I just blurted out some question, that I hope was passably comprehensible, this morning. (Come to think of it, I should go back there and look for responses.)
