SAYING NO IS DONE LIKE THIS

By nature, I am quite a pleaser. If I like you, I want to make you happy. If you go on vacation to Salou (a horror for me), I will still try to say something nice about it. If you thought Kanye's show for Adidas was great, we have a small problem, but in principle, I prefer to go along than to brush you the wrong way.

All nice, kind, and very sympathetic, but if you're not careful, you make everyone incredibly happy and forget a pretty important person. Exactly. Yourself.

My beloved has taught me to say it like it is. The hard truth, then. Like in these situations.

I really have a great neighbor. Attractive, intelligent, successful, and also a mother of three. In all her kindness, she regularly donated her daughters' clothes to me (just a bit older than my girls). Just when I had cleaned out my girls' closet (which we also call Ground Zero at home due to the total chaos), I came downstairs and my lovely neighbor was there with two bags of clothes. They were nice but just not to my girls' taste.

It created a situation. Because if I said ‘yes and thank you so much’, those clothes had to be worn. After all, she lives right next to me. “If you don't intervene now, you'll have a problem for the next ten years because for now, we're still living here.” said my love. So off I went. In honesty mode. “It's very, very sweet of you to think of us, but I really enjoy buying clothes for my children myself, and those closets are already overflowing, and I think there is really someone who you can make much happier with this.” That was out. I don't know if she really appreciated it (I haven't been invited to neighborhood dinners and drinks at their home since then), but I am back in charge of my own closet, and that is worth so much to me.

I know women who have been complaining about their maid for ten years but don't dare to fire her. I could have become such a woman too. Until, again, my love said to me; “Either that maid goes or stop complaining forever.” Easy choice. Away with that woman-who-always-cancels-never-dusts-the-baseboards-secretly-goes-home-early-throws-my-beautiful-summer-jacket-in-the-dryer-spends-an-hour-vacuuming-the-stairs. I can tell you, it feels so good that I did it a few more times after that. Until I found the nicest and best maid in the country.

I work hard, so my weekend is sacred. And reserved for my intimates. I had a very nice colleague who kept trying to plan a one-on-one date with me on Sundays. But I saw her more than my own husband. Coming up with a different excuse every week was too much for me. So, before I knew it, it was out. “My weekend is for my family. You're the first on Monday morning.” I believe she understood.

You drink a bit together, say how nice it always is, and bam, before you know it, your conversation partner suggests going on vacation together. If you don't act adequately for a moment, you're stuck with vacation brochures in front of you the following week. I had such a proactive acquaintance who had fewer friends than I did (and no boyfriend) and had chartered me for two weeks in Miami. Because weak excuses don't work with these kinds of assertive types, I took the blunt axe. Sorry, I only go on vacation three weeks a year. I think you're really nice and kind and wonderful, but a vacation is really too much for me. Let's do a weekend instead.

Liesbeth already wrote about it. It's quite difficult to turn down overly enthusiastic salespeople. I don't know if it's the age or the idea that they really know I'm willing to spend a lot on fashion, but I just say what I think. I have something like, I think it's great but not really my style, it doesn't lift me up is my standard rejection repertoire.

The moral of my story? Saying no is not always fun and really not that easy, but you do someone a great favor. Yourself, yes. And ultimately also that other person. Because honesty...