December Days 02025 #28: No
Dec. 28th, 2025 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptIt's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.
28: No
No, as they say, is a complete sentence. Someone does not have to justify themselves to another if they do not wish to do so, and people should have sufficient respect of others to accept a no, even one that comes without an explanation.
Unfortunately, there is always some subset of people who, when told no, will demand an explanation, and then evaluate the explanation to determine whether they believe it is a valid explanation for the no, and then proceed in their behavior according to whether they accept the explanation. While this surfaces the most obviously in stories of the dating world, usually with men who refuse to believe either that any woman would tell them no, or that this specific woman they have chosen is telling them no, it shows up in all kinds of other places as well, and it's equally caustic in those situations as well.
The "pushy" salesperson, or the person who wants to get to yes, much like the roofing salesperson that I talked to earlier in the month, does not accept no, not the first time around, not the second time around, not even a few other times around. Once the roof person concluded that I really wasn't able to meet the terms they were asking for, and that I was telling the absolute truth about the state of my financials, then they accepted my no, but they phrased it as a no of their own, instead. I wonder if it goes into their books as "we tried to give this customer our best deals, but they refused to take them," People and companies alike don't want to be the reason that someone said no to them, but there is great opportunity for growth and understanding when you have someone who will tell you no. And even more so if they trust you with an explanation for why.
Other people approach the world where the word "no" or any of its permutations, doesn't mean "no," it means "convince me," or "argue with me." This is also one of those situations that appears in the dating world on the regular, because some people are convinced they are Aphrodite's chosen, or Eros's, and that it is simply impossible for them to be refused. Or they've spent significant amounts of time and energy into learning the skills of the pick-up artist and are now confronted with the reality that all of those "skills," in the real world, with real people, mean precisely dick.
My ex was the kind of person who took anything other than a direct no as an invitation to debate or argument or convincing. My response to a conflict situation is fix the problem, and because the only person that I can fully control is myself, that often means my first response to any conflict situation is "what can I do to make this better?" And so, when something was going on, I would usually use a polite phrasing of no, like "eh, I don't think so" so as to not provoke conflict or anger responses with the harder "no." Since my ex saw that as "I'm not firmly decided on this," she would push back on it, and usually, since she was pushing back on my no, I thought that meant she had a stronger need for it than I had believed, and so I would often give in on that, because I wanted the relationship to work, and because I can be very creative when it comes to finding ways of digging myself into holes on others' behalf. Or, as the relationship went on, because I was already convinced that I was going to eventually land in financial ruin, and my job was to try and stave it off as much as possible, if it was possible.
(My ex even figured out that I was constantly stressing about the financials, but rather than ask me how things should change so that I don't stress so much about them, she thought the best solution was for her to handle the financial situation so that I didn't have to think about it. Considering how much of this relationship was being powered by my work and my funds, I definitely did not take that offer. But there are spots in my bookkeeping bits that are simply lost to time and erased from memory, because what's the point in keeping accounts if you already know that the score is too much debt and not enough income? It's been very interesting these last many years to find out that my ability to manage funds is just fine, and what I needed were people who want living situations to work as much as I do, and who recognize that there are limits and respect them.)
Eventually, my ex told me what her thinking was, possibly because I was despairing about something else, or because she was unhappy that I would indulge her and not myself, when it came to various things, and that I kept citing not having the money for it as my reason for both of us not partaking. Once I understood things from her perspective, I started using "no" more often, since that was the thing she had said would actually work for her. And, as I expected and was not that happy about, when I started using "no" on her more often, she became more upset with me, because now I was denying her, in ways that she claimed to respect, and she didn't like being denied things. For as much as she would deny it if you asked her to her face, I suspect she wanted the relationship with me to be another one where she was in control and her partner just did whatever she wanted, regardless of what the costs were for it. And she had some specific justifications for why this particular dynamic was what she wanted and what she desired.
My ex certainly gave me practice at using more direct communication and stronger words than I would have liked to, and it proved to the universe that when my back is truly against the wall, and I have a support network encouraging me to see things as they truly were, I can say no in big and meaningful ways, and make it stick. With many years on from the start of that relationships, I can say that I'm definitely doing better having left it, even with the consequences that have happened because of my decision to leave. (I said no, I don't want the relationship any more, and my ex told me to reimburse her for what she believed she'd contributed to the relationship. Again, I went with the option to fix the problem, so she got what she wanted one last time, and I have been working my way out of that situation ever since. There's light at the end of that tunnel. It's dim, but it's getting brighter with each passing month.
I haven't really found the best way to use no at work, when the people that I would have to use no on are the people who help control my employment status or otherwise are people of higher authority in the organization than I am. I can't quite pull a Bartelby the Scrivener and prefer not to on some of those things, but I have tried to at least express some amount of concerns about things, even when I know that expressing those concerns won't change anything. And we're discouraged from using no as a complete sentence at work with the users, anyway. Since we're library workers and information professionals, we're given more of a charge to redirect than to deny. Sometimes it's a matter of spotting and fixing the error message, sometimes it's offering an alternative provision of services, sometimes it's a referral to another business or place that can do the things they want to do (it never ceases to amaze me how many people want to print large jobs on the library printers, when any of the copy shops in the area could probably give them better rates and better copies than our printers,). Sometimes it really is "that way won't work" or "that way is forbidden to us," but even in those cases, we're supposed to have something handy to offer so that no person gets just a "no" and nothing further for them to try. We're supposed to be helpful, after all, and help is supposed to be directing people to resources that can actually be of use.
That helpfulness can also sometimes be taken advantage of or weaponized, turning it into toxic vocational awe or toxic resilience against difficulties, because a desire to be helpful is sometimes contorted into a belief or a cultural value that austerity really doesn't hurt businesses, public services, or people, because the people who work at a library are endlessly creative and want to be helpful, so they'll find a way to make it all work, and to do more with less. I know this is a common falsehood in more sectors than just government and public services, but that seems to be the place where a fair number of people believe they can profit from any "savings" they get the government from imposing austerity and not providing services or effective services to the people. Thus, we get a good amount of information professionals also having to deal with social services situations, as the only place in the town that lets people in without spending money to stay there, as an ersatz child-minding service, and as assistants to helping teens learn how to function properly in the adult world. All for the same amount of salary as they may have been making ten or twenty years ago, because there certainly aren't any kinds of raises that come with more responsibilities. And at least some municipal authorities like to hold the budget hostage to ensure that the information professionals accept and try to perform these jobs, some of which are vastly outside their domain of expertise. It's not great for anyone in that situation, and you really can't say no to mission and scope creep when the alternative is to have to close for the reason of having no budget. Some libraries have said no to these kinds of requests, or to threats that the budget will be zeroed out if someone doesn't get their way regarding collection development practices and the removal of things they find patently offensive, even though they won't be able to find it legally obscene (at least, not until the Court gets it in their head that overturning Miller would be good for the country.)
All of this is to say that there are tremendous social forces against saying no in any kind of direct and unmistakable way, and even more forces at work to try and prevent people from saying no in any fashion at all, if someone who has been socially judged their superior wants something. I have been able to do it when I need to, but it is usually at significant cost. In the best cases, I'm just taking psychic damage from it. In the worst cases in my life so far, saying no has resulted in a fair amount of debt that is still being repaid, because at that time, I was mostly willing to give her whatever she wanted, so long as she would take it and respect my desire for her to go away from me. In a healthier relationship, my no would have been more respected. And if I had had better emotional and mental health at the time, I might have been able to notice and leave earlier. I cannot get that time back, but I can at least try to move forward in my life and associate with people who are better at being good humans to each other and themselves.
Also, as a parting bit of trivia for this entry, the Magic 8-Ball, the hit oracle of previous time periods, ever actually says "No." It says a lot of things that are clearly meant to be negative, or to suggest another time, method, or person for whatever you ask it, ans well as the positive responses, but the Magic 8-Ball never says no directly. It, too, has been imbued with the idea that direct refusal is unpopular, unseemly, or otherwise unpalatable. Yes, it's a novelty item, but I suspect someone in marketing and product design made a call, or did research, ort otherwise concluded that having an oracle that would give you direct and negative responses wouldn't sell as well as one that hedged or otherwise chose to couch its refusals in less blunt language.
28: No
No, as they say, is a complete sentence. Someone does not have to justify themselves to another if they do not wish to do so, and people should have sufficient respect of others to accept a no, even one that comes without an explanation.
Unfortunately, there is always some subset of people who, when told no, will demand an explanation, and then evaluate the explanation to determine whether they believe it is a valid explanation for the no, and then proceed in their behavior according to whether they accept the explanation. While this surfaces the most obviously in stories of the dating world, usually with men who refuse to believe either that any woman would tell them no, or that this specific woman they have chosen is telling them no, it shows up in all kinds of other places as well, and it's equally caustic in those situations as well.
The "pushy" salesperson, or the person who wants to get to yes, much like the roofing salesperson that I talked to earlier in the month, does not accept no, not the first time around, not the second time around, not even a few other times around. Once the roof person concluded that I really wasn't able to meet the terms they were asking for, and that I was telling the absolute truth about the state of my financials, then they accepted my no, but they phrased it as a no of their own, instead. I wonder if it goes into their books as "we tried to give this customer our best deals, but they refused to take them," People and companies alike don't want to be the reason that someone said no to them, but there is great opportunity for growth and understanding when you have someone who will tell you no. And even more so if they trust you with an explanation for why.
Other people approach the world where the word "no" or any of its permutations, doesn't mean "no," it means "convince me," or "argue with me." This is also one of those situations that appears in the dating world on the regular, because some people are convinced they are Aphrodite's chosen, or Eros's, and that it is simply impossible for them to be refused. Or they've spent significant amounts of time and energy into learning the skills of the pick-up artist and are now confronted with the reality that all of those "skills," in the real world, with real people, mean precisely dick.
My ex was the kind of person who took anything other than a direct no as an invitation to debate or argument or convincing. My response to a conflict situation is fix the problem, and because the only person that I can fully control is myself, that often means my first response to any conflict situation is "what can I do to make this better?" And so, when something was going on, I would usually use a polite phrasing of no, like "eh, I don't think so" so as to not provoke conflict or anger responses with the harder "no." Since my ex saw that as "I'm not firmly decided on this," she would push back on it, and usually, since she was pushing back on my no, I thought that meant she had a stronger need for it than I had believed, and so I would often give in on that, because I wanted the relationship to work, and because I can be very creative when it comes to finding ways of digging myself into holes on others' behalf. Or, as the relationship went on, because I was already convinced that I was going to eventually land in financial ruin, and my job was to try and stave it off as much as possible, if it was possible.
(My ex even figured out that I was constantly stressing about the financials, but rather than ask me how things should change so that I don't stress so much about them, she thought the best solution was for her to handle the financial situation so that I didn't have to think about it. Considering how much of this relationship was being powered by my work and my funds, I definitely did not take that offer. But there are spots in my bookkeeping bits that are simply lost to time and erased from memory, because what's the point in keeping accounts if you already know that the score is too much debt and not enough income? It's been very interesting these last many years to find out that my ability to manage funds is just fine, and what I needed were people who want living situations to work as much as I do, and who recognize that there are limits and respect them.)
Eventually, my ex told me what her thinking was, possibly because I was despairing about something else, or because she was unhappy that I would indulge her and not myself, when it came to various things, and that I kept citing not having the money for it as my reason for both of us not partaking. Once I understood things from her perspective, I started using "no" more often, since that was the thing she had said would actually work for her. And, as I expected and was not that happy about, when I started using "no" on her more often, she became more upset with me, because now I was denying her, in ways that she claimed to respect, and she didn't like being denied things. For as much as she would deny it if you asked her to her face, I suspect she wanted the relationship with me to be another one where she was in control and her partner just did whatever she wanted, regardless of what the costs were for it. And she had some specific justifications for why this particular dynamic was what she wanted and what she desired.
My ex certainly gave me practice at using more direct communication and stronger words than I would have liked to, and it proved to the universe that when my back is truly against the wall, and I have a support network encouraging me to see things as they truly were, I can say no in big and meaningful ways, and make it stick. With many years on from the start of that relationships, I can say that I'm definitely doing better having left it, even with the consequences that have happened because of my decision to leave. (I said no, I don't want the relationship any more, and my ex told me to reimburse her for what she believed she'd contributed to the relationship. Again, I went with the option to fix the problem, so she got what she wanted one last time, and I have been working my way out of that situation ever since. There's light at the end of that tunnel. It's dim, but it's getting brighter with each passing month.
I haven't really found the best way to use no at work, when the people that I would have to use no on are the people who help control my employment status or otherwise are people of higher authority in the organization than I am. I can't quite pull a Bartelby the Scrivener and prefer not to on some of those things, but I have tried to at least express some amount of concerns about things, even when I know that expressing those concerns won't change anything. And we're discouraged from using no as a complete sentence at work with the users, anyway. Since we're library workers and information professionals, we're given more of a charge to redirect than to deny. Sometimes it's a matter of spotting and fixing the error message, sometimes it's offering an alternative provision of services, sometimes it's a referral to another business or place that can do the things they want to do (it never ceases to amaze me how many people want to print large jobs on the library printers, when any of the copy shops in the area could probably give them better rates and better copies than our printers,). Sometimes it really is "that way won't work" or "that way is forbidden to us," but even in those cases, we're supposed to have something handy to offer so that no person gets just a "no" and nothing further for them to try. We're supposed to be helpful, after all, and help is supposed to be directing people to resources that can actually be of use.
That helpfulness can also sometimes be taken advantage of or weaponized, turning it into toxic vocational awe or toxic resilience against difficulties, because a desire to be helpful is sometimes contorted into a belief or a cultural value that austerity really doesn't hurt businesses, public services, or people, because the people who work at a library are endlessly creative and want to be helpful, so they'll find a way to make it all work, and to do more with less. I know this is a common falsehood in more sectors than just government and public services, but that seems to be the place where a fair number of people believe they can profit from any "savings" they get the government from imposing austerity and not providing services or effective services to the people. Thus, we get a good amount of information professionals also having to deal with social services situations, as the only place in the town that lets people in without spending money to stay there, as an ersatz child-minding service, and as assistants to helping teens learn how to function properly in the adult world. All for the same amount of salary as they may have been making ten or twenty years ago, because there certainly aren't any kinds of raises that come with more responsibilities. And at least some municipal authorities like to hold the budget hostage to ensure that the information professionals accept and try to perform these jobs, some of which are vastly outside their domain of expertise. It's not great for anyone in that situation, and you really can't say no to mission and scope creep when the alternative is to have to close for the reason of having no budget. Some libraries have said no to these kinds of requests, or to threats that the budget will be zeroed out if someone doesn't get their way regarding collection development practices and the removal of things they find patently offensive, even though they won't be able to find it legally obscene (at least, not until the Court gets it in their head that overturning Miller would be good for the country.)
All of this is to say that there are tremendous social forces against saying no in any kind of direct and unmistakable way, and even more forces at work to try and prevent people from saying no in any fashion at all, if someone who has been socially judged their superior wants something. I have been able to do it when I need to, but it is usually at significant cost. In the best cases, I'm just taking psychic damage from it. In the worst cases in my life so far, saying no has resulted in a fair amount of debt that is still being repaid, because at that time, I was mostly willing to give her whatever she wanted, so long as she would take it and respect my desire for her to go away from me. In a healthier relationship, my no would have been more respected. And if I had had better emotional and mental health at the time, I might have been able to notice and leave earlier. I cannot get that time back, but I can at least try to move forward in my life and associate with people who are better at being good humans to each other and themselves.
Also, as a parting bit of trivia for this entry, the Magic 8-Ball, the hit oracle of previous time periods, ever actually says "No." It says a lot of things that are clearly meant to be negative, or to suggest another time, method, or person for whatever you ask it, ans well as the positive responses, but the Magic 8-Ball never says no directly. It, too, has been imbued with the idea that direct refusal is unpopular, unseemly, or otherwise unpalatable. Yes, it's a novelty item, but I suspect someone in marketing and product design made a call, or did research, ort otherwise concluded that having an oracle that would give you direct and negative responses wouldn't sell as well as one that hedged or otherwise chose to couch its refusals in less blunt language.
