Poll of the Day > I hate how young people are getting into the habit of saying 'You don't have to'

(+) Yeah! (+)

when really they mean, 'I don't want you to'. I remember classmates I went to school with telling me over again things like, "You don't have to use the computer", "You don't have to write", or "You don't have to do that" in reference to my reading a book, or "You don't have to mark me down" whenever they were convinced that I was a TA after an actual TA told them that so that they wouldn't need to deal with them. "You don't have to go this way", they would say when I tried to go down a corridor with fewer people in it; I had social anxiety. "You don't have to talk back to me", they would say if I tried to scold them. "You don't have to report me to the teacher", they would say if they did hit me. I was afraid of being caught studying, and in school no less. Just earlier this year, I encountered a hair stylist who said that I didn't 'have to' get a haircut that I desperately needed. "Not if I didn't want to," she would keep adding insistently whenever I said 'Yes' to her over again. "You don't have to slow down for me at an intersection that has traffic lights installed, because even though I'm still going 50 MPH near the intersection, I'll stop, probably". That last one was an exaggeration, by the way; but I still feel the need to complain about it. I'm just getting so sick of people nearly giving me heart attacks when they're driving. I'm sick of having to wait for them to come to a complete stop at intersections with traffic lights.

People obviously say this because they don't want to look bad; they don't want to be reminded of how entitled they are. They're lying to themselves and encouraging others to take part in their delusions.

What's this damned world coming to?

That being said, the expression, "That won't be necessary" has been around for a while.

I don't know how to respond to this.

keyblader1985 posted...

I don't know how to respond to this.

I typed up a response, thought twice and then just decided to erase it.

Given how widespread the issue seems to be, I would consider whether the problem might be you rather than them. Perhaps you're giving a strong non-verbal expression that you don't want to do whatever it is you're doing at any given time. If after a bit of self assessment you find that they're on to something, maybe take their words to heart: you can choose not to do the thing you don't want to do. If on the other hand you really don't have any misgivings about what you're doing, maybe try modifying your expression to be more assertive and/or less miserable and see if that has any effect on how people respond to you.