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December 6, 2005
Just Freakin' Say No Already
This is something I wrote back in August. I was unwilling to post it at the time because the person it was about was reading my blog. But he's gone, so at long last the post gets posted. It begins with a long quotation from Isak Dinesen's essay "On Mottoes in My Life":
The family of Finch Hatton, of England, have on their crest the device Je responderay, "I will answer.''...I liked it so much I asked Denys... if I might have it for my own. He generously made me a present of it and even had a seal cut for me, with the words carved on it. The device was meaningful and dear to me for many reasons, two in particular. The first...was its high evaluation of the idea of the answer in itself. For an answer is a rarer thing than is generally imagined. There are many highly intelligent people who have no answer at all in them...Secondly, I liked the Finch Hatton device for its ethical content. I will answer for what I say or do; I will answer to the impression I make. I will be responsible.
One thing that drives me crazy is people who can't say no, not in the Ado Annie from Oklahoma! way, but in the general sense of not being able to risk disappointing someone. This affliction affects every segment of the population, but Mormon women seem to have an especially bad case of it. I notice it every year when I go to fill up panels for Sunstone: I'll start gathering names of people I could invite to participate, then email or call them. There's always at least one Mormon woman who simply can't tell me no, though she desperately wants to. She clears her throat, she dodges the question (always invoking an obligation to her family--she's just so busy with the kids!), not wanting to give me a straight answer because she's afraid it will hurt my feelings.
What I want to know is this: why is being led on, strung along, forced to interpret vague clues of resistance, somehow kinder, nicer and more tactful than simply being told, "I'm really sorry, but I have neither the time nor the inclination for what you're proposing, so I'll have to decline your generous offer. I heartily wish you the best of luck in finding someone who's interested"?
One of my friends told me that when he came out of the closet to his mom, the conversation went like this:
My Friend: Mom, I'm gay.His Mom: Did you take some hamburger out of the freezer? Because if we don't start defrosting it now, it won't be thawed enough in time for dinner if we want to make spaghetti.
I'm having one of those conversations right now. I keep trying to talk about the big pink elephant sporting a grass skirt, carrying an ukulele and dancing the hula in the middle of the room, and the person I'm trying to talk to keeps saying, "Did you take some hamburger out of the freezer?" Or else he says nothing at all.
Circumlocutious, evasive and oblique are not among the words most people would use to describe me. Candid, forthright and honest are. Not only am I not circumlocutious, evasive or oblique, but I don't trust or respect people who are.
Just freakin' say no already!
Posted by holly at December 6, 2005 6:59 AM
I will answer. I like that too. Even if there is no question.
I am sad to report that after fourteen years, Mom and I are still defrosting. No one speaks of the pink elephant.
Of course, there was a time, shortly after the conversation you mentioned when the elephant was discussed in high volumes. God was summoned, declarations made and hearts broken, then we pretended it never happened. That's the basic difference, I suppose. I wasn't really looking for an answer so much as an acknowledgement. Acceptance.
Maybe sometimes people don't say no to protect us from it.
"Maybe sometimes people don't say no to protect us from it."
I'm sure that's what they're thinking: "Oh, this person will be devastated if I say NO!" But there are ways to be tactful and kind even in delivering an honest refusal, in all but situations where the NO is to a question like, "Don't you love me anymore?" And I haven't asked that question of too many people.
What I really hate is an insincere and weasly "maybe."
My problem with the whole hemming, hawing, circumolocution issue is that often when I'm asked to do something, I genuinely _want_ to do it (like serve on a Sunstone panel with a dear friend), but I am tied to all kinds of family obligations. I can speak for my own desires/availability, but I've also got to work around John's needs/schedule and those of my kids. As much as I want to think that I can make choices based solely on what I want to do, the reality is that I often have to opt out of wonderful opportunities because of my family obligations. Perhaps the other women that you've approached about SS panels are in the same boat?? :)
I guess I'm the queen of 'maybe', 'perhaps', and "I'd love to, but...."
We're all confronted with the necessity of setting priorities, of choosing between desirable opportunities and pressing obligations, of saying no to things we'd like to do in order to take care of prior commitments. The fact of the matter is, learning to do that is a requirement of adulthood.
If some of the women I contact at Sunstone genuinely WANT to be on the panel I'm proposing but can't because of obligations, I can live with the disappointment of being told that, far better than I can live with the frustration of being told, "I'm not willing to say yes, but I can't say no." I can also understand why someone might say at first, "I need to think it over; can I give you a definitive answer next week?" People can communicate sincere regret in turning down an offer, and I can accept it; I can also deal with the fact that someone might need a week to see how future events look like they're going to line up. But this weasly business of saying "Not yes, because I don't want to say yes, and not no, because I can't say no"--I have no patience with that.
Here's a "not yes/not no" answer I got last summer:
'Hello Holly! My family and I leave for China tomorrow, so things are a bit hectic around here. I am on a panel on July 29th and wonder if I can be a "last resort" for your panel. In other words, if you just can't come up with another panelist, I'll do it. (I certainly have a lot to say on the subject.) My concern is simply that I will be gone chaperoning a High School choir trip from July 27-28, will be at Sunstone on the 29th, and am hesitant to commit myself to yet another day away from my family. Names I'd suggest:'
She then goes on to suggest I contact a bunch of women (adding that she doesn't have contact information for them, but I can get it from the Sunstone office), most of whom I already know well and am in contact with.
But look at her "refusal": Notice the enthusiastic greeting, even though she's never met me and doesn't know a freakin' thing about me. Notice that she won't come right out and say NO, though she sure as hell makes it clear why she dare not say YES. Notice that she invokes obligations to family, wanting me to understand how busy she is, and that what it all comes down to is her hesitance to commit herself to "YET ANOTHER DAY AWAY FROM HER FAMILY."
Not that she has something else she has to do that day, but that she's such a devoted Mormon matron that she can't agree to spend YET ANOTHER DAY AWAY FROM HER FAMILY.
WHATEVER.
Here's my reply:
'Thanks for getting back to me. I thought about J, M and P all already--M is an old friend; J and I have been on several panels together; and P and I were on a panel together last year and are on another together this year. I really wanted to branch out and get a different mix on my panels as far as the personalities go, but I understand your reluctance to commit. I'll ask the people at Sunstone for other suggestions.'
Notice how polite I am. Notice that I take the freakin' hint and don't say, "Oh, well, I'll get back to you and let you know if I need you." No, I just say I'll look for someone else.
Understanding the reasons for a behavior and respecting it are two different things. I understand why Mormon women refuse to give refusals, but I can't respect it.