I’ve recently had quite a few encounters – some direct and some second or third hand – with situations where someone says “NO” (or the equivalent of it) clearly and repeatedly, and… it’s like spraying petrol towards fire.
Nothing serious, normal everyday situations… You know what I’m talking about.
That work meeting where a colleague who clearly knows way less about the topic than you decides to “help you out” with an idea of their own, and the more reasonable arguments you have, the deeper they seem to fall in love with what they had suggested, to a point where you “owe it to them” to make it come to life…
Or the stupid project you fought against and still found landing on your lap – because clearly the boss knows all of your noes translate into a simple lack of confidence. Of course you have time, just believe in yourself! Who needs resources when you’ve got the right attitude!
Or the event where you’re forced to have a drink because not wanting one would make you a party-pooper, or cause an evening-long discussion about your “extremism”. Or the subscription of a newspaper you don’t want, or the dish your friend wants you to order (and pay for) instead of the one you know you’d love.
It’s all fun, it’s all harmless banter. Right…?!
I do love people who dare to fight for what they believe in, who express their unpopular opinions; who say the things they feel I need to hear. Who push me to achieve more than I would without them. In my world, good will and honesty trump politeness, every day and all day long. But – how far is too far? When do we move from “presenting your opposing arguments” to “disrespecting the original opinion”?
Like last night, an absolutely silly discussion about me not having *the right* to hate riding the new scooters. Chatting with people I love, and still ending up feeling like I was ganged up on.
So, clearly, there is some line that can got crossed along the way, even for vocal people like me. One “no” too many. Or perhaps it has to do with specific words that trigger you. Or perhaps it’s the enthusiasm such disagreements tend to happen with. If even the sanest person you know can get so hyped up in exerting their “influence” they are willing to resort to illogical claims just to *WIN* proving your feelings are completely irrelevant to them, what does it signal about the wider societal norms?
I can’t help but feel we live, again, at a time where “No!” marks the beginning of a negotiation, a start of a battle rather than an end to something. Not sure whether it’s the unstable political climate or the wavering economic safety that has brought us back in time, but NOT taking “no” for an answer has become a celebrated virtue. Again, and despite all the wokey growth we pretended to have done in the meantime.
We see it cheered on in sales trainings and movies; romanticised in the dating context; hailed and praised in political ambitions and business – in ever-increasing speed and quantities. Just look at America, and the orange clown proving that the new main criteria for winning big in life is having tenacity and influence to get large enough crowds to drink the cool-aid against their will.
Just close your eyes and cover your ears and keep banging that drum until others give up…
OF COURSE I get that that being relentless can be, and often is, a good thing, that it has its place and value, that persistence can be transformative and is necessary, that we need pushiness to get things done and initiate bigger changes. Honestly, I get it. And yet, at the rate it’s seeping into *every* aspect of our lives, it’s getting… well, overwhelming.
Whether it’s someone pushing you to overcome your fear of public speaking, buying the right crypto, curing your mental health by doing whatever they are doing, or joining some unique diet regimen, there is a strange status currency forming around the ability to *convert* someone.
People don’t just want you to agree with them. They want the *WIN* of changing your mind. In a world where influence is vital, being able to “recruit” is becoming a survival tactic.
And no, it’s not about villainizing people for being enthusiastic or excited to share something they deeply care about. I am one of those people who tends to go wayyyy overboard the second I feel passionate about something.
I’m talking about the normalisation of overriding small boundaries that leads to bigger changes within us. Situations where you don’t care but still push; or where it’s not your place or call and you make it yours with no upside for those being pushed over and under; or, worse case scenarios, blowing up their life, sanity of emotional balance and then leaving them to deal with the clean-up, alone.
The shift of “not taking no” becoming the “way to go” also means we’re again moving away from consent-based interactions. Remember the #metoo movement and the hard-fought efforts to change laws so that explicit consent is required — instead of the cruel and unfair requirement forcing victims to prove they said no?! Today – April 2025, as unbelievable as it might seem – an Estonian state prosecutor stated that being raped does not automatically cause “any mental, emotional or physical harm” and such harm needs to be proven separately. Like, what the actual fuck, right?!? So yeah, perhaps the topic of being pummelled into compliance cuts me a bit deeper today than it normally would, but it has been weighing on my mind, for a while. Just one of those things where my vestibular system has told me we’ve already started moving to a different direction before my eyes and brain are able to confirm it…
It’s tiring to have to justify why you don’t want something that has to do with YOU alone, to someone who is not you nor cares what it feels like to be you. And – I am loud and verbal. I state my opinions with clarity and force. If I feel the toll of having to fight to have even the smallest and most insignificant of my refusals accepted, how much must it take out of those who are quieter, softer, more tolerant?!
The countless micro-aggressions, the build-up of discomfort, the inability to spend ever-more energy trying to push back something that should have been solved with respecting the first clear answer…
The loss it generates is not just felt on the individual level, we also end up paying as a society.
Being forced to explain yourself to exhaustion knowing it has little or no effect makes people less likely to do so, and more likely to start inventing other strategies – to avoid landing in those situations in the first place. To cope with, once there. To mitigate the aftermath if preventative measures fail.
It’s the kind of pressure that gets internalised, and heavily masked. The noes get softer, more vague. Clear answers get replaced with half-agreements. Discomfort buried under jokes and laughter. Communication becomes curated and guarded to avoid “why not” follow-ups.
And conversations get shallower, human connections more superficial. There is no way around it because you cannot be vulnerable if you need to be planning your defence and exit strategies, simple as that.
Soon, we’ll talk about the weather and the price of eggs and wonder what happened…
I don’t know where the line between over-enthusiastic arguments and emotional abuse runs, but I know it should be defined by the one being pushed, not the pusher, or we’ve lost something we’ll never get back.
Maybe we just need to agree on a safe word.
Or maybe those pushier of us just need to realise that the behaviour we react with to someone saying “No!” or telling you how they feel or what they need also informs the person how much value we put on them, and whether we think they are liars or not.
