Well, that is a change of mind, not that no didn’t mean no.
This is also different from what I took the thread to be about. The thread originally referenced was about someone saying “no”, meaning “yes”, and expecting the listener to understand it as “yes”, which is the crucial difference.
Right, but it’s the kind of thing that might be percieved by someone as the expectation of mind reading: “you said not to get you frys and here are are eating mine”
And again, people might misunderstand these situations–like if my husband asks if I need help but I don’t want him to feel obligated so I say no, but he watches me struggle for a few minutes and then gets up and helps me and I say thank you. After ten years we both know what happened, but a decade ago he might well have thought I meant yes the first time and why didn’t I just come out and say it?
Offers of assistance with minor chores if I’m staying somewhere as a guest - it’s not at all uncommon for the host to say no to the first offer of help with washing up or some such - offering again isn’t rude or pushy, it just shows willing.
Lots of people never entirely overcome their programing. As long as it’s not a pattern of passive aggressiveness, this sort of thing, to me, can simply be a quirk. I’ve known several people in my life who just couldn’t take a beer until they saw that everyone else had one, or who had to deny wanting anything at all for their birthday but got bummed if they didn’t get anything. Now, any quirk is a legitimate deal breaker–relationships are about what you want, not what you should want–but if someone choses to stay with someone and accept the quirks they have, it’s not a bad thing, and if after a few years you know she’ll tell you not to worry about Christmas but that her face will light up if she wakes up and finds something under the tree, then get her something or cut her loose. Don’t keep trying to change her into someone she isn’t, or get angry that she isn’t the person you think she should be.
Understand that I, myself, am overall pretty assertive. But I do think that we assertive people tend to overestimate how easy that assertivness is for the truly shy and insecure.
True, sometimes it means “Yes, but not right now.” And sometimes it means “Yes, but I don’t want you to think I’m a slut.” And sometimes it just plain means no. This is where reading body language becomes such a valuable skill. But in any case, the advice is the same – dial it back a bit.
And sometimes permission for shared naughtiness needs to be given. When my last GF and I would drive by a Dairy Queen, she would ask me if I wanted anything from there. She would get annoyed if I said no. She would get downright pissed if I said “No, but you can get something if you want to.” The thing is, she wasn’t really asking me a question. She was really saying “I want ice cream, but I’d feel bad if I had one alone, so I need you to have one too. And make it look like it’s your idea, so I won’t have to feel like a pig.”
Sometimes women have a really alien style of communication.
No means no. And sometimes it means, “If you ask me again, you slimeball, I’m going to kick you in the nuts.”
So you’re saying a BJ is right out of the question? 
No.
What?
The thing is, at least to me, if you stop pursuing someone who says no, if you stop humoring them, if you stop dealing with them, they’ll either die of neglect or change their ways.
It seems like asking the people who are misspeaking what they get out of it is the wrong question. The question is, if you’re putting up with someone who’s doing it, what are you getting out of it?
[call me homophobic, but]Oh, yuck! :eek: [/cmh,b]
If you still want one after being kicked in the nuts, I, well, I don’t know what to say.
Except maybe, “I’m not into that.”
I agree that passive aggressive behavior isn’t sex specific. It’s some of the most aggravating behavior to try to deal with.
My theory is that if we’re going to try to stay reasonably sane around people who are unable to communicate like adults, we have to take their words at face value. If someone tells me “nothing’s wrong” then I usually point out that their behavior is sending mixed messages and if that’s what they intend then fine.
I think “no” has to always be taken for “no.” Having come from an abusive family I have taken a lot of time to learn how to communicate in a healthy way, and I’m often very frustrated when I am direct and honest and the game-players insist on reading something into what I say. I suppose they can’t understand that everyone isn’t playing the same games with words that they are?
But when someone tells me “no” then I take it at face value also. If I ask you if you want to go out to dinner I’m not going to beg you. If you say no then it’s no. Conversely, if I ask you to donate your time to some cause or other and you say “yes,” I expect you to mean it.
As you can imagine, I am disappointed a lot. :dubious:
Yous see, though, if either one of us had been female (or gay), my joke would have totally kicked ass. As it was, meh. But it was a fairly obvious joke that needed to be told. Don’t blame me, blame the joke.
The look in your eyes as you deliver the steaming plate to her? It’s that whole " I want you to want me" thing. Ought to be the case that most of the time if not all of the time in a really healthy relationship, it makes a person feel good about themselves AND the other person to do something like cook dinner for the other person.
The cheap payoff is in waiting to be slathered with gratitude. The sapphiric payoff is how you feel inside about doing it for the other person.
** Sapphiric: new word. Goes with the other one in this thread. 
**
Cartooniverse
Why do we put up with anything in the people we love? Because they have other qualities that make it worth it, and because we recognize our own imperfections and quirks and understand we benefit from their tolerance in turn.
I don’t think adults should try and retrain one another: either accept someone as they are, or move on.
I was going to ask as I was reading that “and how’s that working for you.”
It would be nice if people said what they meant - and that when they said it no one took offense or thought it was rude. But truth be told, sometimes that “no” (or “yes”) when you don’t REALLY mean it is done so no one gets hurt. Sometimes we address each other obliquely because to be too direct hurts. And it may be done because it hurts ourselves (“I’m such a glutton, I can’t even pass a Dairy Queen”), not to protect the feelings of the other party.
“Does this dress make me look fat?” should almost never be answered with “yes” - even when the dress is made up of two inch horizonal stripes in Spandex and makes the wearer look like a beached whale. Particularly once you’ve left the house, are already running late, and there isn’t anything to be done about the dress. At home, “I really like that red one better” is a good answer. Once you are out the door “blue is a great color on you” is better than yes - and more honest than no - but not everyone thinks that fast - they just know they shouldn’t say “yes.”
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
I was going to ask as I was reading that “and how’s that working for you.”
Saying I was disappointed a lot was an attempt to lighten what I felt was a heavy mood, so I guess it didn’t work too well.
Are we talking about dress color and such superficial things? Because I was thinking about misunderstanding caused by unhealty, ineffective and even manipulative behavior. Might be my fault for going right for the deep end, but I usually have more fun there.
[QUOTE=Commonsense]
I think we are talking about when no doesn’t mean no (and, I think, by extention when yes doesn’t mean yes and “do you want to stop at Dairy Queen?” means “I’m having a need for a chocolate dipped cone RIGHT THE HELL NOW and we will stop.”) Sometimes those situations are unhealthy or manipulative. Sometimes they are healthy and effective and are part of what makes society function without anyone taking out an Uzi any more often than they do.
If more people would just say yes then the goddamned question would stop getting asked. The tippytoeing around just makes it a good strategy to ask the question. Stop tippytoeing and suddenly that person doesn’t benefit from being such a weasel in the first place.