GRRRRRR Why don't people say what they mean!

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My Mum: Would you like to open the door for me?

Me: No (was enjoying the sunshine and was in no particular hurray to get)

One arugment later, it turned out she meant " will you please open the door for me as I need to back to the car, collect the shopping and will have my hands full"

Well why did she just say that in the begining!! ! To me there is the world of difference between would I like to do something and will I do something to help someone out.

She was giving you the opportunity to make the considerate choice. You failed.

My response wasn't harsh, just curt and lacking a helpful elaboration.

As a mom, I phrase things in a similar way from time to time. I want my kids to make an appropriate choice. The difference between "will you" and "do you want" are negligible in a modern society. Not only do we have to consider whether or not it's appropriate to answer a question literally, we have to examine the context of the question to really find an accurate answer.

"Would you like to open the door for me?"

Most of us would probably say "No". Opening a door sounds boring and pointless and something someone else can rightfully do for themselves. However, let's look further... opening a door is reasonably easy so why would she ask? Is there an undisclosed reason why she would ask to have the door opened that would make her incapable of doing it herself? There was a car full of shopping bags that needed to be brought in. Okay. Do you want your mom to have to struggle with the door and with all the bags? No, likely you would not want that to happen. So, do you want to open the door? Yes, you actually do.

In the future, if you know there's a car full of shopping bags, consider making the offer or, even better, offer to fetch the bags for her (or at least help).

I find it when difficult to know when to and when not to offer help to other people.

If I need help I will ask, i.e "Please can you open this bottle of water for me, the lid is stuck", so presume others will do the same.

Its very difficult to know if people need help or assisstance if they don't ask; when I was in college I once offered my seat on a full bus to a guy who look about 80 and could barely stand and yet he was offened and yelled at me!!

I find it very confusing sometimes without clear instructions.

I also have that problem. I need to be told specifically what the person wants me to do.

Self-analysis and over-analysis of situations is an obsession for me. I take it for granted that not everybody is like this. However, if you can manage to examine a situation from the outside, it might help from time to time. As you can see, it helps even if you can do it after the fact for any time that it might happen in the future.

I have the opposite problem, I think.

I have learned from experience that when people say "Would you like to ..." it usually means "I'd really like it if you would ..." or "please ... for me" or "It'd be helpful if you'd ... "

So, if someone says "Would you like to open the door for me?", my answer is to get up and open the door.

But it gets me into trouble.

If someone says "Would you like something to eat?", I usually feel obliged to say "Yes" even if I'm not hungry, because I'm interpreting it as described above. So I sit there with whatever food they prepare, unable to eat and I get "Well, why did you say Yes if you didn't want it?!". And then I feel stupid and frustrated.

Or, alternatively, I'll be confused by my feelings of obligation to say Yes to something I *really* don't want to do - like eat something I don't like, or go somewhere that I really would rather not go. So I'll just look at the person and freeze and not say anything. So they ask again ... and who knows what will happen in my confusion at that point!! !

Woops, sorry. I do this too. I ask because it's polite than ordering people around to do stuff for me. But every time I am asked to do stuff, I always think they want me to do it. I can't tell the difference.