When someone offers me a favor (say, letting me sleep over) how to I distinguish between:
They would personally enjoy carrying out the favor. (Maybe they enjoy my company or something).
They wouldn’t enjoy carrying out the favor, but they care about my well-being. (They’re willing to make a sacrifice on my behalf).
They don’t care about me and are hoping I turn down the favor. (Maybe they feel socially obligated to offer).
They’re not actually offering at all. (They’re just saying something that naively sounds like an offer, but they expect me to know that it isn’t really).
The first can often be distinguished from the latter two and sometimes from the second by talking as-though-idly to the person about your alternatives. (“But if I stay home, I can go see that movie with my sister on Tuesday.” “On the other hand, the hotel has a pool.”) They can then say positive things about the alternatives, which is your cue to go with one of those.
This doesn’t work if you have no alternatives or your alternatives are all so terrible that there is nothing plausibly good about them—if you do that in that case you sound passive-aggressive (“Or I suppose I could just sleep in my car”, “Well, I could crash with my cousin in Albuquerque if I were willing to get rid of my beloved cat”).
My preferred method is to ask “hypothetically, if you didn’t actually want to do that, is there any way I could find that out?” The reason I prefer this is because the people it works with are generally people I get along with more generally, and over the decades my life has been improved by accumulating such people within it. That said, it fails often, and sometimes dramatically.
It depends on where they come from. (Ask culture vs Guess culture, etc.) If you don’t know, try asking “Are you sure it wouldn’t inconvenience you? I could also find a hostel nearby” or something.
I really wouldn’t say that, at least not in that way. It will generally be heard as “Please provide more reassurance that it won’t inconvenience you”. If I’ve offered something and am thinking better of it, there’s still no way to respond to “are you sure that’s OK” with anything other than “yes, I’m sure that’s OK”, and I resent it all the more for being forced to say that. Alicorn’s suggestion is good.
When someone offers me a favor (say, letting me sleep over) how to I distinguish between:
They would personally enjoy carrying out the favor. (Maybe they enjoy my company or something).
They wouldn’t enjoy carrying out the favor, but they care about my well-being. (They’re willing to make a sacrifice on my behalf).
They don’t care about me and are hoping I turn down the favor. (Maybe they feel socially obligated to offer).
They’re not actually offering at all. (They’re just saying something that naively sounds like an offer, but they expect me to know that it isn’t really).
Literature recommendations welcomed.
The first can often be distinguished from the latter two and sometimes from the second by talking as-though-idly to the person about your alternatives. (“But if I stay home, I can go see that movie with my sister on Tuesday.” “On the other hand, the hotel has a pool.”) They can then say positive things about the alternatives, which is your cue to go with one of those.
This doesn’t work if you have no alternatives or your alternatives are all so terrible that there is nothing plausibly good about them—if you do that in that case you sound passive-aggressive (“Or I suppose I could just sleep in my car”, “Well, I could crash with my cousin in Albuquerque if I were willing to get rid of my beloved cat”).
IME, there’s no one way; cultures vary.
My preferred method is to ask “hypothetically, if you didn’t actually want to do that, is there any way I could find that out?”
The reason I prefer this is because the people it works with are generally people I get along with more generally, and over the decades my life has been improved by accumulating such people within it.
That said, it fails often, and sometimes dramatically.
It depends on where they come from. (Ask culture vs Guess culture, etc.) If you don’t know, try asking “Are you sure it wouldn’t inconvenience you? I could also find a hostel nearby” or something.
I really wouldn’t say that, at least not in that way. It will generally be heard as “Please provide more reassurance that it won’t inconvenience you”. If I’ve offered something and am thinking better of it, there’s still no way to respond to “are you sure that’s OK” with anything other than “yes, I’m sure that’s OK”, and I resent it all the more for being forced to say that. Alicorn’s suggestion is good.