A Logical Chain of Events · 7:07am Aug 20th, 2023
Based on a true story. Read as dialogue.
“When you offer help without me asking for it, that makes me feel infantilized.”
“Well, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Okay, it’s still how I feel when you do that.”
“I just want to help you.”
“Offering unsolicited help does not benefit me and actively makes the situation worse.”
“So what would you like me to do?”
“I would like you to only offer help when I ask for it.”
“Okay.”
48 hours later with a different person
“I talked to [REDACTED] and I understand that you don’t want unsolicited advice. How would you like me to help?”
“It would be most beneficial to only offer help when I ask for it.”
“Okay I can do that.”
After 2 hours of unsolicited advice, accusations, and unnecessary anger
“I’m sorry if I ‘ignored your boundaries’ but I was only trying to help! You don’t have to get so upset at us.”
The context is that I’m getting my drivers license next week and I asked my parents to stop fighting with me while I’m behind the wheel because that is literally how you cause an accident. And apparently their feelings supersede my desire to not die.
But I thought I’d omit the backstory because is it really necessary? Brevity is a blessing, after all. I didn’t really like the idea of being seventeen anyway. /j
-TG
Tbh I probably could have used more ‘I’ statements in this debacle. But my parents could have gotten less speeding tickets over the last 3 months, so I guess there’s room for all of us to grow