Thursday, March 14, 2013

An experiment on helping

I am quite independent, I don't need help often and I don't ask for help often...if I need it, I have no problem asking my family or a super close friend for a little assistance.

After the 'crazy about you' thing with ManFriend, I thought, maybe I should ask him for help, see how he reacts...maybe like a test.

So I text him one evening and say "when you get a chance, can you look up at the drop ceiling tiles in your building and let me know what size they are".  A super small and easy task.  He says 'absolutely'.

Two days later he messages me saying they were definitely not one foot, maybe 1 1/2 or maybe 2.   I thanked him for his assistance and went to the HomeDepot website and did a quick search on drop ceiling tiles and saw that a 2 foot tile was 'standard'.  OK, so sure, I could have done that days ago before asking ManFriend, but again, I was looking to see if he'd help me.  I replied back to him it must be a two foot one since that is 'standard' and I just looked it up online.  He responded he would measure when he got home.  I told him that was not necessary because I looked it up and was 99.9% confident that it was 2 feet, but thank you.  He kept at it.  I told him it was fine, I didn't need help.  He became a little defensive like 'what, you can't ask me for help?''.  So, blunt me says, "I already did.  I asked you to tell me how big it was 2 1/2 days ago, and when you responded you had a non-answer.  'about/maybe' doesn't count. So I took care of it, but thank you".  This went on that he would definitively text me later...I told him not to waste his time and that he has sufficiently annoyed me and that I would like to end this conversation.

I sat at my work desk and thought...when he looked at the ceiling, he could have measured it in a fake way...so maybe he doesn't own a tape measure (that wouldn't surprise me, he is not handy), but there are other ways to measure.  He could have taken off his shoe and figured out based on that how big the tile was...maybe 2 shoe lengths of whatever size he has, then a quick google search on men's shoe size and the inch equivalent   Or he could have used his thumb...part of the thumb is about an inch, so just measure it against the side of the tile.  Or even a sheet of paper; standard paper is 8 1/2 x 11...so just use the paper to get an estimate.  It is easy.  there is 6 inch difference between 18 and 24 so it is a safe bet when it comes to estimating that size.

Sure enough, ManFriend texted me late that night with '2 feet', yes, I've know that since he first text message with the non-answer.

This goes onto the "CON" list of ManFriend.  He is not handy, he couldn't handle a very simple task and he couldn't accept he failed at something and instead persisted even though I told him not to.  That last one should be a good thing, persistence to some extent is good....but he seriously annoyed the crap out of me with his non answers and whatnot.

My advice to all you men...and some of you women, is when you are asked for help either state "sorry, I can't help you" or "sure, I will get back to you"-and get back with a REAL answer....not a non-answer.  If you think you can help, and then realize you can't, I know that you had good intentions, but maybe the task was too difficult, I won't hold it against you if you are honest about it and simply state that you are sorry you don't have an answer...but please don't make something up.

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