Do you ever have trouble saying no to your friends?

[emerald86]

I've enjoyed writing stories ever since I was a child. Whenever I had to write a short story for any of my English classes, I'd get pretty excited about the assignment. In the past year, I've had two of my short stories published in magazines--nothing major, but I think this might be where my problem is.

 

Friends come to me every now and then to have me edit their essays, and I'm always happy to help. But there's one particular friend who I feel takes advantage of this. First, she asked me to edit an essay for one of her classes and I was happy to help. I spent a significant amount of time going through each line and making sure the whole thing made sense. She was very happy with the grade that she got and since then has made me edit quite literally...every. single. thing. that she writes.

 

She makes me edit school assignments, emails she sends to professors, and nowadays, since she's applying to graduate school, her graduate school essays. She'll say things like, "I wrote this essay and I have to submit it by midnight so please take a look." So I'll edit it and I'll tell her to make certain changes. And then she'll send it back and say "I changed it--can you read it again? Oh and I also added three more paragraphs so make sure you look at those also." She would come to me with a different essay for each school she's applying to and say, "Here. Edit all of these--I need them by tomorrow." And then on some random days at maybe 1 in the morning she'll say, "Help! I need to send this email right now, please edit it." She knows I'm usually asleep at 1 am lol, but my phone will still be flooded with her calls and texts. This happens all the time.

 

I'm worried about what will happen when she gets to graduate school, where she'll likely have to write essays upon essays. Will I have to edit every single one of those too? I'm dreading just thinking about it. And I also don't get why she thinks I'm a much better writer than her, which is certainly not the case. I enjoy writing short stories for fun but that's basically it--I'm otherwise very average when it comes to writing. I don't have any real writing ambition and I truthfully don't even enjoy editing essays lol.

 

Would I be wrong to tell her that I'm getting too busy to be her editor? Or would that be too mean? I don't know how to say this to her nicely. She's the kind of person who believes that her friends should always be there for her no matter the circumstance---and that's definitely what she's going to tell me if I say no to her. There will certainly be a guilt trip, and that's why I'm having so much trouble with this.

Edited February 8, 2016 by emerald86

[CC12]

Would I be wrong to tell her that I'm getting too busy to be her editor?

 

No, that's exactly what you should tell her. And maybe throw in that her writing has been improving a lot (surely it has, right?) and that she should have more confidence in her work.

 

She's the kind of person who believes that her friends should always be there for her no matter the circumstance

 

Of course she feels that way - she's the kind of person who has no problem at all asking people for significant favors, over and over, at any time of day or night. Someone like that would get upset if told no, because they believe they are entitled to other people's time and efforts. This is not an endearing quality.

 

You wouldn't be wrong tell her you won't be editing her work anymore, ever. No one is entitled to favors. On the other hand, I think it's nice to help friends, as long as it doesn't take up too much of your personal time. You give yourself boundaries, like:

 

-Don't spend more than, what, ten minutes for a long paper? I'm thinking like you read through it once and circle typos and mark weird sentences with a question mark or something. No rewriting anything.

 

-No more editing her emails, holy **** that seems so unnecessary.

 

-No late-night or "emergency" edits. You've heard the saying, "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." You cannot and should not drop everything you're doing in order to help her.

 

-In response to "I changed some things, can you read it again?" You can say, "I think you'll be fine as long as you corrected the things I circled. Good luck with it! Let me know how it goes!"

 

-If you don't feel like doing it, then don't! You can say no whenever you want! You don't even have to have a good reason.

 

If she gets pissy about any of this, I hate to say it but you should rethink the friendship with her. As someone who is generous and also has trouble saying no, I've learned that it's really hard to be friends with people like her. Hopefully she'll surprise you and be totally cool about it and ease off of asking you for favors.

[emerald86]

No, that's exactly what you should tell her. And maybe throw in that her writing has been improving a lot (surely it has, right?) and that she should have more confidence in her work.

 

 

 

Of course she feels that way - she's the kind of person who has no problem at all asking people for significant favors, over and over, at any time of day or night. Someone like that would get upset if told no, because they believe they are entitled to other people's time and efforts. This is not an endearing quality.

 

You wouldn't be wrong tell her you won't be editing her work anymore, ever. No one is entitled to favors. On the other hand, I think it's nice to help friends, as long as it doesn't take up too much of your personal time. You give yourself boundaries, like:

 

-Don't spend more than, what, ten minutes for a long paper? I'm thinking like you read through it once and circle typos and mark weird sentences with a question mark or something. No rewriting anything.

 

-No more editing her emails, holy **** that seems so unnecessary.

 

-No late-night or "emergency" edits. You've heard the saying, "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." You cannot and should not drop everything you're doing in order to help her.

 

-In response to "I changed some things, can you read it again?" You can say, "I think you'll be fine as long as you corrected the things I circled. Good luck with it! Let me know how it goes!"

 

-If you don't feel like doing it, then don't! You can say no whenever you want! You don't even have to have a good reason.

 

If she gets pissy about any of this, I hate to say it but you should rethink the friendship with her. As someone who is generous and also has trouble saying no, I've learned that it's really hard to be friends with people like her. Hopefully she'll surprise you and be totally cool about it and ease off of asking you for favors.

 

Thank you! I completely agree with everything you wrote! It's just sad that she doesn't even ask me anymore--she demands that I edit her essays. And when I do, there's absolutely no sign that she's happy with what I've done. When I tell her, "here's the edited version, let me know what you think," I get no response. I mean, even a smiley face would suffice! I believe that anybody else would expect a "thank you" in this situation, but that might be pushing it for her, so I'm not even expecting that anymore haha.

 

When I took English classes in college, I'd always go to the writing center for essay help. These people were amazing, so I think I'm just going to suggest that to her.

 

And yes--I agree that editing emails is so totally and completely unnecessary. I still can't believe she asks me to do that!

[preraph]

Tell her, You know I love you and don't mind helping when I have time, which isn't very often these days, but when I help someone, I do it so they can learn from it and do it themselves the next time. If I keep doing it for you, you'll never learn to do it yourself.

 

Or if you want to keep it short, just say "No, sorry, I am way too busy" and don't keep texting or calling about it if she persists. Say no and disappear. And keep doing that.

[LydiaLong]

Here's what I would do.

 

The next time she sends something, wait a few days before you look at it. If she gets annoyed, just say you won't have time to read it for 3 or 4 days. Keep stalling. Eventually she'll get the message.

[Taramere]

I sympathise with your predicament. I did this for a foreign student I became good friends with while studying, and it became quite time consuming for a while. Fortunately her English improved dramatically as the course wore on. Twenty years later, she's still a very dear friend...and I'm glad I helped her, even though at the time I used to get a bit fed up with the whole thing. Especially at the start, when I more or less wrote her essays (and a few times they were awarded higher marks than my own were).

 

I think that if you enjoy writing then it's very easy to fall into a pattern of helping people in tasks like this. Maybe you should find out what things she naturally gravitates towards. So for instance, if she's got an obsessive compulsive thing about cleaning her house, you could tell her then..."yes, editing your essay is going to be a pleasure for me, in the same way that cleaning my messy kitchen from top to bottom is going to be a pleasure for you. Between us, we'll be winners!"

[ExtraSpice]

I have noticed that if you do something good for someone enough times, it becomes expected. And then it feels more like a duty as opposed to a nice thing you may be doing out of choice.

 

So I am very careful on saying yes to things for people. I try to limit what I do for my friends and the friends I do them for. The good ones recognize the value of the action and don't take it for granted.

 

You absolutely should ease off on helping this girl. You don't have to directly say yes, just as other have mentioned, take longer to reply, say you are busy, no rewriting or rechecking. Def not checking emails. She should get the hint. And honestly if she doesn't want to be friends because of that then she was never really a friend to begin with.

 

In conclusion, you should say no maybe just be tactical about it.

[BonerFide]

Before I say anything, I would just like to say it's about a hundred times easier to just not accept the burden than it is to try and shirk it off, because then she'll act like you're spiting her by refusing to do what you've been doing. So in the future, think before you repeatedly say yes as then you end up digging yourself a hole which is hard to climb out of. However, that doesn't help you in this situation, so I would say just shoot her a message. Nothing too aggressive, no need to be like "F-- you, I'm not your grammar monkey!" and drop-kick her out of your life, just something simple like "Hey, I'm getting quite busy and your frequent need for my help is disturbing my schedule and when I'm trying to sleep, so I'm no longer comfortable with proof-reading minor things like emails and short papers and I'll only be able to go through what needs correcting once, not as you make amendments." It's firm and not open to debate without being too rude, and if she's a reasonable person whatsoever she should get that. If she tries to play the "You should be there for me!" card, point out how much of a favour you're doing her/have been doing for her and the fine line between asking for help and taking advantage that she continually crosses.

[Satu]

No.

 

 

(Ten characters.)

[Methodical]

You can only be taken advantage of if you allow it. Asking for help is one thing, telling or demanding your service is another ball of wax. To assume you have nothing better to do with your time but be at her beck and call and demand you perform tasks on a rigid timetable is presumptuous and inconsiderate. Does she value you or what you do for her? I understand she's furthering her education, but does she ever contact you when she's not in need of your assistance?

 

At some point you should probably let her know that in the past you've dropped things to edit her compositions, but moving forward, you have incorporated other interests and will no longer be available to edit all her work.

 

I gather your issue is her imposed timelines and expectation, taking you for granted rather than asking and appreciating your graciousness.