There's no turning back

If you are one of those who can’t say ‘no’ when you should, read on ...

I USED to be a bit of a pushover. If you made a suggestion to me, and stated your case ever so nicely, while looking at me with doleful, pleading eyes, I would usually be easily persuaded. For example, I started smoking at the age of 15, because the popular girls at school wanted to hang out with me (they had ulterior motives) and I could only be with them if I adopted their lifestyle.

“Come on! Everyone smokes,” they said, proffering me a cigarette behind the school bicycle shed one day. They all smiled at me, encouraging me to give it a try. I’d just moved to a new school and was eager to make friends, so I lit up a cigarette, took a puff and began coughing violently. I then proceeded to vomit my breakfast onto the ground in front of me, narrowly missing someone’s shoes.

“Keep trying and you’ll soon get the hang of it,” someone said.

Nonetheless, the popular girls quickly abandoned me when they discovered I wasn’t in a position to give them money for more cigarettes. I was left with nothing but a bad taste in my mouth and a nicotine habit that stayed with me for 10 years.

As I entered into adulthood, I still found it difficult to say “no” in response to an unwelcome request. There was something about that two-lettered word that I couldn’t articulate without an accompanying feeling of guilt.

Over the years, I’ve sat on committees; listened to poetry recitals by dyslexic octogenarians; had repeated dinners with a man whose only topic of conversation was about fertiliser and the modern farming system; babysat for someone’s goldfish (they all died on me); and crawled knee-deep in bat guano, through a dark cave in the middle of the jungle; all of that and more, because I couldn’t bring myself to say a simple “no”.

Even in the workplace, when I had every right to turn down unreasonable last-minute requests to complete a project ahead of schedule, I would smile at my boss and tell him, “No problem.”

Under my breath, though, I would be grumbling about his lack of consideration for his staff. I thought he was the one with the problem, when all along it was me and my “can’t-say-no” syndrome. Things began spiralling out of control when I relocated to Malaysia in 1982. For it was here that I first encountered the manipulative tactics of sales personnel in supermarkets.

During those early years, whenever I tried to buy my regular hair shampoo, a flock of salesgirls would usually descend upon me calling out: “Sister, sister! Try this one. This one better-lah!”

I was powerless to refuse. As a result, every other month, I would end up using a different shampoo. It was only after my hair began to resemble that of a victim of nuclear fallout that I came up with a line to silence them. Subsequently, whenever I was approached by a salesgirl selling a product other than my own, I would respond by saying, “Sorry-lah, but I’m buying it for a friend and she only likes one brand.”

It worked. But after a few months of normal hair, I began to feel guilty about the dishonesty. After all, what sort of person was I if I couldn’t even say no when I wanted to?

Assertiveness

Around about this time, I attended a book fair where I was approached by an extremely charming man selling a publication on the subject of assertiveness. And, as you’ve probably guessed, I couldn’t refuse him, and ended up taking a copy home with me. I didn’t know it at the time, but that book was to change my life forever.

After devouring the slim volume from cover to cover, and role-playing the suggested scenarios with a friend, I found myself better equipped to turn down requests that didn’t suit my lifestyle and/or my schedule.

Of course, some people didn’t like the new assertive me. For example, my hairdresser was shocked when I refused her regular offer of a hair treatment comprising ancient mud from the bottom of the Dead Sea, which she had probably just dug up from the bottom of her garden that very morning.

“Why you don’t want, uh?” she said. “You have bad mood or what? Normally, you never refuse one.”

Such an important lesson, and yet it took me so long to learn.

BY MARY SCHNEIDER 

Check out Mary on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mary.schneider.writer. Reader response can be directed to star2@thestar.com.my.