What would that tell you about them?
Depends wholly upon the scenario, IMHO.
Are you basing this upon repeated and continuous observation of someone in particular, or is this behavior that has only been observed a few times? And what were the circumstances regarding the failure to say ‘thank you’?
Hard to make any type of intelligent assumption about someone, without a lot more info.
This may not be what you’re asking so let’s get it out of the way. A lot of people can’t accept compliments by saying ‘Thank you’ because they are so insecure that they don’t believe they deserve the praise. Are you asking about the jerks who won’t acknowledge a kindness/favor you did for them?
What if what’s perceived as kindness/favor to you isn’t to them?:dubious:
I see your point.
When someone does something nice, and goes out of their way to do that thing, especially when “hypothetically” 
it’s calling the ins. company and staying on hold for 20 min. and repeating the issue repeatedly, and the person for whom one is doing it, cannot simply say Thanks.
You wanted to show this person how inferior and incompetent he/she was by easily resolving an issue that had previously thwarted him/her? And he/she had the temerity not to thank you? Say it is not so!
I think some people really dislike being beholden to someone. Saying thank you feels like saying “I suck. I can’t take care of myself. I am dependent on others. I am the lowest, vilest worm”. So instead they tell themselves that the favor wasn’t a favor, it wasn’t that big of deal for the other person, whatever.
They might play a mean pinball?
I don’t know why, but I had a hard time saying thank you to my parents when they were alive and would take me out to lunch, dinner, give me money, etc. It felt awkward to say the words for some reason. Of course, I never said I love you either. Now that they are gone, I find myself often saying thank you for all that they left behind for me.
I found it really hard when in Japan at my inlaws.
It’s not that I couldn’t say “thank you” but I was required to do it over and over again.
I’f my father in law brough me a beer when he got one for himself I’d say thank you. 5 minutes later he say “hey you enjoying that beer?” and I’d say “yes, Thank you” and 5 minutes after that my wife would say “you should say thank you” and on and on…
It got to the point where I wanted to say “keep the damn beer”. It wasn’t an isolated incident.
I have a feeling this is probably just my inlaws overplaying it and not typicall of the entire country.
When someone seems unable to say “thank you”…
They must be one of my sisters, or my mother. :rolleyes:
If they couldn’t do it themselves and had to stoop to asking someone else to do their dirty work for them, don’t you think that is debasement enough? I take a thanks as implicit in the act of being sadly or nicely asked to do something for someone else.
Whether they deserve that help is another matter entirely and up to your own judgement.
Sometimes a person’s attitude makes you feel more like their underling when they ask - if so, there’s no implicit “thanks” and there’s even less reason to do anything for them unless they pay you to.
I’m probably more lax about people saying “thanks” because one doesn’t have to voice gratitude for it to be readily apparent. I also don’t do things just to extract praise from others. You also can’t demand a “thanks” without causing resentment, so don’t even try a passive-aggressive, “A thanks would have been nice, you know!” tactic.
In the end, if verbally saying “thanks” is very important to you, stop doing favors for people who don’t say it.
It would probably piss me off initially that someone doesn’t say thank you easily. But after awhile, I’d like to think I’d stand back from the situation and deconstruct the reason behind my irritation.
If you think about it, saying “thank you” is just an arbitrary societal convention. Like eating with utensils at dinner or covering one’s mouth while yawning. It seems natural to us because that’s what we have been taught is proper and “good”, but there isn’t an objective rule that says gratitude can only be expressed with those two words. For instance, if I do someone nice for someone and they pay me a compliment (“You’re a life saver!”), then it would be kind of stupid to get worked up about a failure to say “thank you”.
So if someone seems unable to say “thank you”, I would assess their gratitude using a different metric. And if they still don’t measure up, then I would give myself permission to call them an ingrate.
At the other end of the spectrum are people who can’t say you’re welcome. Why is that?
I can’t remember anyone who was unable to say thank you (possibly because I just didn’t notice). But one Grandma-in-law in particular could never open a gift without doing a small monolog about why she didn’t need whatever it was that she’d just been given and how it was useless because she would never use it. Every time.
The one reliable exception was boxes of chocolate covered mint patties.
It irritates the crap out of me, but, I think it’s some macho thing with the guys. Not in a bad way, just a different way-something like ‘guys don’t say thanks, and they don’t kiss each other, either’. With chicks, it’s usually, IME, either that they find me so insignificant that I don’t rate acknowledgement, let alone a thanks, or else they think that they have scammed me, and are trying to get out of the exchange without further ado.
If they asked you to do it, they owe you thanks. If they didn’t ask, they don’t. Though they might choose to thank you anyway.
Is it to everybody or to some people?
In the first case I’d figure they think of the public recognition of help as being “weakening”. In the second, they take those people for granted.