Attitude Not Gratitude

I recently published an article on favors here in which I suggested one "rule" of favors is that rudeness on the part of the favor receiver is not an option. Simply put, in asking for help you automatically forfeit your right to complain about the nature of the help received (assuming an honest, good faith, attempt to deliver on the help, even if it is clumsy or stupid, or poorly through through, or whatever). No matter the form the requested help takes, the only appropriate response on the part of the favored is gratitude and humility.

In my opinion of the four "rules" I suggested this is the one that is most often broken. Interestingly, it seems to be broken equally no matter the relationship dynamic between the helper and the helped. Husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, friends, lovers, or total strangers tend toward this equally. Brothers helping sisters is just as fraught with this problem as complete strangers helping one another. It seems to be basically universally true.

I am sure if I took the time to look there would be gobs of literature from psychology and sociology that address this question. Since I can't be bothered to do any actual research and would rather spout off my own heavily biased opinions, I did not look. Therefore, with apologies to the many who have studied this problem I present three of my own half baked hypotheses.

1. The Power Dynamic

Many people feel powerless or believe they have less power than they should. People who feel powerless, when given the opportunity to have power, tend to go way over board in the use of that power, particularly as it relates to relationships with other people. In the case of being helped the helpee is actually put in quite a powerful position. It affirms that their position in any given relationship with a helper is strong enough that they will offer to give help. "If the other person didn't really like me, why would they be offering to help me?" they might think, or "They must really like me a lot to offer to help me" is another possibility. These thoughts may not always be at a conscious level but they can be there, at least according to this hypothesis. This presents a golden opportunity for the person that normally feels they are powerless. They finally have some power and so now they are going to exercise that power much to the chagrin of the helper who takes the brunt of the attacks that are the result. While this hypothesis has some attractiveness it seems to have very little explanatory power which suggests it is very weak. One could easily argue that the helper is actually the person in the position of greater power. After all, it is they that choose to help of their own accord, or were asked, and agreed to help. They are the favor giver and thus the favored owes them a debt of gratitude at the very least. Any time debts are accrued in a relationship, the lender is in a position of power over the borrower and can use that debt against them in a myriad of ways. They can for example use that debt to extract future favors for themselves or as leverage in an argument or as a bludgeon to attack. All of these uses of power are relationship destroyers but they are deployed regularly by those who have done favor(s) for others.

2. Guilt and/or Shame

Another possible explanation for asshole like behavior on the part of the helped is guilt and/or shame. This hypothesis suggests that the person who is helped feels some level of guilt and/or shame over the asking and/or receiving of said help and because of this guilt or shame lashes out against the helper at any given opportunity. Guilt and shame are two emotions that often trigger asshole like behavior and lashing out. Much like the power dynamic this hypothesis feels awfully weak. Compared to those who respond by lashing out, just as many people react to guilt or shame by shutting down/walling themselves off from others. Guilt and/or shame on the part of the helped could be a partial explanation, but it is definitely not the whole story.

3. Embarrassment

My final hypothesis posits that it is embarrassment on the part of the helped that is the trigger for shitty behaviors vis a vis the helper. Simply put, it is embarrassing to have to ask for help. When you ask for help you are admitting a weakness, admitting that there is something you cannot do, and many times this is a thing which the help needer feels others in their position would not need to ask for help to accomplish. It is embarrassing to think that you cannot do something you believe others can do easily. And, it is even more embarrassing, to have to reveal this weakness to others in the form of asking for help. Of the three hypotheses this one feels the weakest. In reality, most asks for help are very simple things like, can you give me a ride to work tomorrow, or, can you help me lift this thing, or, can you help me find a good restaurant to eat at tonight, are just a few examples of the many trivial things for which people regularly ask for help. None of these trivial asks for help would seem likely to trigger embarrassment in anybody. Of course the same argument could be made for the other two hypotheses. The fact that assholish behavior on the part of the helped rarely occurs with trivial asks for help supports the idea that these explanations do not apply in those cases, for they are not needed. The triviality of the ask for help does seem to matter, but, as I discussed above, the relationship dynamic does not seem to matter at all.