I agree with the poster upthread who said that, at work, “I don’t know” is often not an acceptable answer. It’s annoying and unhelpful and more likely to generate continued questioning than, “I don’t know, but his secretary Jeanie would - she sits right over there.”
On the other hand, getting that same answer at home is less annoying. I don’t know why - probably because with friends and family I know they probably give a rat’s butt that I get what I’m looking for.
One other thing that may apply sometimes is what happens with people like me who have the compulsion to answer any question immediately:
Coworker: Did you check the xyz instrumentation diagram?
Me: I don’t know *)
Me: ::clickcklickclick taptap clickclick taptaptap click::
Coworker: Well?
Me: There were a few errors. I requested a correction yesterday. Not yet in.
That’s horrible. I hope the spousal unit will be well.
That’s a rhetorical question blurted out in nervous suspense. Granted, she shouldn’t necessarily be using you to spill her excitement on, or she should just save it up until the actual announcement.
I’m usually patient with people asking me twice. My ex used to ask more than three time…sigh
You want to go to ZORBGHH?
No.
You sure?
Yes.
Really, really sure?
grates teeth YES.
You really really rea-KABLAMI SALAMI
I swear to god, I’m going to start lying to my husband when he starts this crap with me. I like to be knowledgeable and I like to be right, and I’m usually a pretty helpful person. If I have any clue whatsoever about the subject or have any tangential information I will offer it willingly, unless I’m in the bathroom or am up to my eyeballs in some work situation or something. So really, when I say “I don’t know”, I Do. Not. Know. And when I helpfully suggest a place/method for him to find out, it’s pretty annoying for the suggestion to be rudely dismissed. Yeah, Google and Yahoo Answers and Encyclopedia Brittanica and Websters all suck, but you’re the one with the question, dude.
Edited to fix spelling. I ain’t all that knowledgeable.
I suspect that she didn’t really want to know the hard, factual results of your analysis of whether you would win. Maybe, she wanted to hear something like, “I think we might win!” Who knows, but the point is that human interaction is not solely for the communication of factual information.
This one isn’t difficult to figure out at all, right?
“I want to go, so will you please come with me even if you don’t want to?”
Oh, and a lot of people will say “No, I don’t want to go” when they really do want to go. For whatever reason they just don’t want to say so, perhaps because they’re afraid it might be too expensive or because they think the other person doesn’t want to go.
Humans aren’t computers. They don’t always say exactly what’s on their minds.
I really wasn’t exaggerating when I said she’d asked me 10 times. In fact I probably was being conservative. I said things like, “We really worked hard and I think we have a good chance,” and “It’s really exciting,” but I don’t think it would have mattered if I had said nothing at all. She was just burbling.
That makes NO sense. It’s the same logic that informs the statement “women say no when they really mean yes”.
If people say “No” then, unless you have some kind of evidence to the contrary, they mean no. If someone wants to say yes but has misgivings for whatever reason they’d probably say i.e. (to use your example) “Hmmmm, I’d like to but it’s quite expensive there and I can’t really afford it” that way the person asking can say “It’s okay, I’ll pay this time” or something. Just repeating the request and adding an additional “really” each time won’t make someone change their mind.
I thought of this thread just now when dealing with a patron.
Our entire on-line catalog is down while some hardware upgrades are being done, and a patron asked me when it would be back up.
“We don’t know, they haven’t told us what to expect.”
“But will it be this afternoon?”
“We don’t know.”
“So it might not be today even?”
“That’s right, sir. We do not know: they have not told us.”
“So it could even be tomorrow!”
“Yes, sir. We don’t know, sir.”
It’s not logic. Human interaction is not always subject to logic.
Unless your experience shows you that they don’t always mean “no” when they say “no.” People respond like computers. Once you’re shown that, why would you insist on treating them like they did?