A few days ago, a female friend threw party of a lifetime. For her this party was bigger than even getting married or even having a baby. We had been friends for almost a decade now and were real close. I have known her for the best part of the decade.
I was not invited for this party, I agree that at this moment, our relationship has been not at its best but not being invited to such an important event has hurt me immensely.
However, the issue is not of being invited, I can handle rejection better than most men I know because I have known that there is always a wonderful life beyond it.
The real question for this topic arose when a couple of days before the party she suddenly asks, (an equivalent of), setting up the table for her, or arranging the music, so that she can entertain her guests better. As any decent person would do, I politely declined.
Nevertheless, that offended her. I guess she was not able to understand that if you do not invite people you should at least not talk about that party in front of them. Other case could be she thought that I would anyway do anything for her.
In addition, did she understand saying ‘NO’ to something does not always mean that you do not care for that person; it just means that particular demand was not the right one and will not be fulfilled.
It is not only her, this has happened many a times in my life. When I am polite and nice to people. They start to take advantage. They think I would bend over backwards. Suddenly, when they here ‘NO’. They get offended. Which was not their right anyway.
Since then I have been confused about the Art of saying ‘NO’ and the philosophy of ‘NO’.
However, the larger problem itself is like a ‘Socratic Irony’, where the questions that you ask or the suggestions / answers (you would understand this friend) that you provide are for the benefit of the other person or to understand their subject and logic, but they misunderstand your intentions and they assume that you are hurting them or putting them down. You then become the guilty party or an awful person.
Every person who has ever dealt with a teenage child understands this and but the problem is that my friend is probably the most intelligent person I have known, but she still sometimes behaves emotionally as a teenager. The strange thing is that whenever I am with her she behaves like a really mature person but when I am not with her she turns into a child whose candy has been snatched away.
For someone who does not know about the Socrates life, here is a brief overview:
He probably was a bricklayer, but actually he never worked. He thought his job was to contemplate on philosophy. ‘Plato’ refers to him as a ‘Gadfly’. It means the person who flouts the conventions or disturbs the status quo.
One day an Oracle told his friend ‘Chaerephon’ that Socrates was the most intelligent man alive in Athens. This actually disturbed Socrates because he thought he was not wise and still had a lot to learn. Therefore, he went about asking wise men in Athens on their subjects to refute Oracle’s words. He used to question them publicly and look for answers and used to give them suggestions. As a result, Socrates kept on becoming more and more wiser because he was the only one who knew his own deficiencies. When prominent people started to feel this pinch, which happened more often than not. They started to complain against Socrates. This made Socrates infamous. Eventually, the charge of poisoning minds of the youth came about and finally, he was put to death by making him drink poisoned hemlock.
Similarly, I think that saying ‘NO’ (or suggesting to do something), to someone, that is close to you has the same problem. You say ‘NO’ because either it is not the right thing to do or you are actually offended by it.
However, when this happens it makes you wiser as now you understand the problem from both sides as you have logically reached a conclusion of saying NO. The other person though does not understand it, as they have not gone through the thought process of saying ‘NO’ or why that suggestion was made. They just understand the final answer.
Which in turn makes you look bad and paradoxically you are wiser and more caring for the person but the other person hates you more.
Therefore, what is the best method of saying ‘NO’ or suggesting something politely.
I think most of the time in my case the reason NO suddenly created such a uproar was because I was too nice for longer than I should have been. Now not being nice doesn’t mean that you should be nasty. I think there is always a polite way of saying ‘NO’ without being nasty.
Managing feelings (your's and the other person's) is far more difficult. Most of the time people do not say ‘NO’ because it either suits them or in some cases they feel that the other person would actually like them as they have done something special by not refusing. In this case, as stated above the paradox hits and the other person does not even give you credit for not saying NO for that particular thing. Most times, they would actually take another negative feeling towards you that you could be manipulated.
What I am beginning to learn through experiences is that you should not ignore your feeling but still say NO politely with an explanation of ‘NO’. Hope by doing that you would actually cut the paradox right there and with a bit of luck, you would make the other person go through the similar exercise that you went through while suggesting something or understanding your ‘NO’.
I always try to use humour when I say ‘NO’ to people. However, in some cases the condition is either such that you cannot use it or sometimes people do not understand the humour. Then it has to be a polite version.
The most common problem people face is that we all keep hoping that the other person would change. For eg: When I said ‘NO’ to my friend I just wrote a short simple ‘NO’ instead of telling her what I felt. Now in turn when she got offended she just wrote ‘Sorry for asking’ instead of asking for an explanation.
I think we both made the mistake, I assumed that she would understand that I am hurt and in turn she did not ask the reason. If she would have written, ‘Why are you saying ‘no’? , what is the reason? Or, I am sorry for not inviting you but I want this done as you are the best person to do it. Then it would have been clear to both the parties.
When we face conflict and reach the point of saying ‘No’ we keep thinking that ‘It wouldn’t have reached this place if he/she listened to me on what is making this situation so frightening for me’, ‘If only he knew what is so irritating for me’.
I think putting onus on others for your feeling creates this situation for us. Instead of that we should communicate this feeling clearly.
I really hope that what I have learnt in writing this I would be able to implement in my life and if you read and like it please be sure to use it and let me know if it helped you in anyway.
Just a thought popped into my head:
What if, Socrates would have said ‘Yes’ to an apology instead of a ‘No’? Maybe we would not be talking about him right now or maybe he could have contributed more by surviving.
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