A practical solution for yes-sayers

There are those who say yes to everything. If they say no, they are afraid of angering the other party and losing them. They cannot stand behind the yeses they say reluctantly, they cannot keep their promises, and they become liars for no reason. Without going into deep psychological analyses on why they do this, we can recommend the following practical solution to these yes people: Don’t say yes to every proposal; instead of saying yes, say: “let me think about it, look at my schedule, and give you an answer later.” If the other person presses you to say yes immediately, or shows signs of resentment, add: “I may have made promises to other friends whom I care about very much that I don’t remember now; if I say yes to you without looking at my schedule, I won’t be able to keep my promises to them. So I ask you to wait a bit.”

These two sentences will create a slight resentment on the other side, but if the other person respects you as a human being, they will not sulk and leave. On the other hand, if the other person is an exploiter who has no respect for you, who knows your inability to say no and wants to manipulate this weakness to get you to do what he wants, he will reproach you, curse you, abandon you and look for a new victim who cannot say no.

If one benefit of this tactic is that it saves you from saying yes to offers you don’t want, perhaps an even greater benefit is that it allows you to distinguish who respects you and who doesn’t. Bottom line: anyone who won’t accept your polite no has no respect for you, and there are too many benefits to be counted for such people to leave your life.