15 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You Have A Hard Time Saying No
- You accept people and situations you admit are toxic
You want to always do the right thing, so you embrace situations and people as they come and watch them broken hearted as they spin out of your life, like you’d have no control over what happens. You secretly believe saying no to such people is bad manners and you prefer to waste your precious energies with emotional vampires, even at the cost of your own well being.
- You make promises you fail to keep
Naturally, you want to please everyone, and accept to do things for them upon request, but realize you’ll never be able to fit all those chores in your already crammed schedule. You say yes to everything even though deep down you wish you were in bed right now instead of attending another social event your friend asked you to join because not enough guests showed up.
- You want to be friends with everybody
While people who can choose easily what’s good for them and what’s not know few but close friends are more important that tons of untrustworthy acquaintances, you keep telling yourself you must befriend everyone. You’re afraid saying no will limit you, and you accept just anyone in your life, no matter how little things you have in common or how they make you feel.
- You’re dismissive of your own opinions
Even if you know you’re right, you tend to adopt the dominant opinion in a social circle, because you’re afraid to stand out or to rely on your instinct. If someone tells you they don’t like a certain band, movie or event, you immediately say “Me neither”, because you feel they wouldn’t accept your unique point of view.
- You change plans all the time
When you can’t say no to anything, you have a real hard time disseminating the options life presents you with. Say you have planned a weekend at the beach with your BFF, but then your cousin calls for you to urgently babysit her toddler. You drop everything and attend to that, because you think it’s not okay to say no to your family.
- You apologize a lot
You have a hard time owning up to yourself and often prefer to apologize for things you didn’t do rather than accept it wasn’t your fault a situation turned in a certain (messy) way.
- You spend more than you can afford
Even if you’ve carefully planned you spending for the week, you go over the budget if a friend suggests dinner at a new sushi place and then urges you to hit the club with them. You think you’ll miss out on life or never get a second invitation, so you splurge on things you can’t afford because you secretly believe turning down offers like such is rude.
- You have unprotected sex
This is a bummer, but it’s not unlikely for you to engage in unhealthy sexual acts due to your fearful nature. You’d rather sleep with someone without protection than standing up, facing the facts and telling them you’re leaving if they can’t cover such basic care.
- You keep dating people you’re not really into
This goes hand in hand with #10, in the sense that if someone asks you out you allegedly go for it, even if you’re not hyped about that person. You have a track record of dates with people you never really liked, never considered attractive or never wanted to get involved with, just because you’re always late to saying you’re not interested.
- You easily give your phone number to strangers
Yes, you do. And then complain to your friends for getting all those unsolicited dick pics, cat callings and stalkers on your trails. The worst part: you’re afraid to block them or reject them, so you keep the conversations going hoping the person at the other end of the line will eventually bail out and leave you in peace. Not gonna happen!
- You let your parents dictate your life
You probably still live in with them, and if you have moved out, you still accept their presence your life and in your home more than it’s healthy. You have a difficult time setting boundaries, and the relationship with your parents is the one reason you’re failing to say no, especially if they have decided for you ever since.
- You tolerate abusive partners
You let a toxic partner eat away at your self esteem and engulf you in self pity, hurt and blame because you think all relationships are like this, and leaving your won’t change much. You believe rejecting them would make you a bad person so you keep finding excuses for their intolerant behaviour in your head, even when your heart says Run!.
- You take advice from anyone for granted
Even when it’s bad or unacceptable advice, you try to follow it because you think the person who offered it must’ve known better. You base your life choices on other people’s beliefs and end up getting more hurt because you’re afraid your thoughts are not relevant.
- You overwork or accept to work for free
This is mostly common with people who can’t say no at a work place or freelancers who provide their clients with significant time and effort and accept little to no payment in return. You think you’re not in the position to dictate the value of your work and you feel like you should help everyone, no matter how poorly they treat you.
- You take on more than you can possibly do
Bouncing from #14, you tend to take much more responsibility than you can bear. You try to please everybody, even if the odds are not realistic, and you overwork, overpromise and overachieve without always benefiting from your great efforts.
