I’ve never understood how anyone has trouble saying no more than “not interested” and closing the door or ending the call.
They’re the ones choosing to interrupt your life. You don’t owe them attention, an explanation, or anything else when you find that interruption not warranted. They are, in fact, being quite rude.
Seems to me like a question of “how much do you forgive”, which people mostly choose instinctively. Forgive too little, and then you needlessly escalate unintended mistakes. Forgive too much, and then some people will exploit you.
In theory, the best solution would be to find out exactly what happened, and react accordingly. But of course people will lie about this. Another strategy is to be charitable first, but then put abusers on a blacklist. Which doesn’t work when you interact with strangers. Yet another strategy is to “trust but verify” the people you know, and automatically mistrust strangers. That also has some costs, plus the problem of how much interaction is needed to reclassify someone from a stranger to an acquaintance. (And some salesmen have a way to hack this algorithm, by insisting that you introduce them to your friends, which gives them fake “friend of a friend” credentials.)
Essentially, this is the thing I hate about salesmen and similar folks: A certain degree of forgiveness is socially useful, it reduces the conflicts, allows to overcome misunderstandings, etc. But there are people who burn the commons for fun and profit.
Sure. I have an opposite problem, of ending the interaction with at least the minimum of politeness instead of anger or utter contempt. I typically manage it, though. (though I don’t actually have to deal with door-to-door salesmen ever, and phone sales extremely rarely. So it’s more people who approach me on the street to try and sell stuff or ask for money).
Nevertheless, this has been interesting to consider. While I’m not vulnerable to door-to-door sales, I recently noticed I may be vulnerable to less obvious variants of the same kind of manipulation. I feel this is an example of a general pattern in social interactions (or, say, work relations).
You feel that the true reason to say no is impolite/unacceptable to say. You say something that sounds polite/reasonable instead, even if that is not your true reason (though it may be part of the reason). You have now pseudo-committed to acting like it is your actual reason to say no. This has created an attack surface that can be exploited.
I’ve never understood how anyone has trouble saying no more than “not interested” and closing the door or ending the call.
They’re the ones choosing to interrupt your life. You don’t owe them attention, an explanation, or anything else when you find that interruption not warranted. They are, in fact, being quite rude.
Seems to me like a question of “how much do you forgive”, which people mostly choose instinctively. Forgive too little, and then you needlessly escalate unintended mistakes. Forgive too much, and then some people will exploit you.
In theory, the best solution would be to find out exactly what happened, and react accordingly. But of course people will lie about this. Another strategy is to be charitable first, but then put abusers on a blacklist. Which doesn’t work when you interact with strangers. Yet another strategy is to “trust but verify” the people you know, and automatically mistrust strangers. That also has some costs, plus the problem of how much interaction is needed to reclassify someone from a stranger to an acquaintance. (And some salesmen have a way to hack this algorithm, by insisting that you introduce them to your friends, which gives them fake “friend of a friend” credentials.)
Essentially, this is the thing I hate about salesmen and similar folks: A certain degree of forgiveness is socially useful, it reduces the conflicts, allows to overcome misunderstandings, etc. But there are people who burn the commons for fun and profit.
Sure. I have an opposite problem, of ending the interaction with at least the minimum of politeness instead of anger or utter contempt. I typically manage it, though. (though I don’t actually have to deal with door-to-door salesmen ever, and phone sales extremely rarely. So it’s more people who approach me on the street to try and sell stuff or ask for money).
Nevertheless, this has been interesting to consider. While I’m not vulnerable to door-to-door sales, I recently noticed I may be vulnerable to less obvious variants of the same kind of manipulation. I feel this is an example of a general pattern in social interactions (or, say, work relations).
You feel that the true reason to say no is impolite/unacceptable to say.
You say something that sounds polite/reasonable instead, even if that is not your true reason (though it may be part of the reason).
You have now pseudo-committed to acting like it is your actual reason to say no. This has created an attack surface that can be exploited.