To think indecision is bloody rude

[AirborneElephant]

Have family staying. Love them, but my god they drive me mad. What would you like for breakfast? Whatever you’re having. Would you like to do x today? If you’d like. Would you like tea or coffee? I don’t mind. Do you want chips or salad? Whatever you want. AAAARGH. It’s not polite, it’s rude and passive-aggressive .

Just a rant really, but anyone else find this incredibly annoying?

You can behave as you wish, but they are not incorrect, as you put it, to feel they way they do about your behaviour.

My mum's answer to everything is "I don't mind", "whatever you think", "I'm easy". But then she misses out on experiences because she daren't express a preference. And she is so far from "easy", it's laughable!
She came home from a city break to Paris with 2 friends and said, mournfully, "I can't believe i went to Paris and never once got to go to a French bakery". I asked if she'd told her friends that she'd like to visit one:"Well, no". And then it was of course the friends' fault for causing her to miss out.

I think @KPPlumbing and I have the same mother! One of my friends once said about my mother, “I’ve never met anyone with such strong preferences who completely refuses to express them”. And it was a huge moment of clarity for me, having lived with it all my life. With my mother, there was a definite expectation that things should be done the way she wanted without her having to say. And that was very irritating and stressful.

i can see why a question of “what would you like for dinner?” Is a bit difficult/loaded - there are almost infinite suggestions and nobody wants to say “rack of lamb with dauphinoise potatoes please” if there’s a chance that the host was thinking takeaway pizza or macaroni cheese. But when it’s a case of “red or white?” or “tea or coffee?”, I do think people should be able to state a preference when asked!

My late mother-in-law was like that. It came from severe lack of self-confidence. It used to drive me mad, too.

My DM is terrible for this. I had inherited the tendency, but was cured in a flash in my twenties when a friend I was staying with got exasperated at my refusal to express a breakfast preference. All at once i saw how fucking annoying I was being. Now I make decisions promptly and clearly and am much happier (and a much better house guest).

DM is regularly aghast at my assertiveness, but she'll choke down food she doesn't like for fear of being a bother, and who wants that in a dining companion?

My mil does this and it's clear afterwards that she did have a preference as you get a sulky vibe if you get it wrong (which she perhaps tries to hide but fails) so you feel like you're in a constant guessing game. Exhausting.

Absolutely 100% hate this 🤣.

Just get to the point- TELL me what you want/like, I'm not bloody psychic!

YANBU 💯

To be honest I’d love that, it would make me very happy knowing I was making you happy! But as others have said there’s a middle ground. If I’m standing with a frying pan offering eggs and bacon say “yes please”. If I ask if there’s anything you’d like to do while you’re here, please say that you’d like to go shopping in town!

I hate this too - but it’s not really just indecision that’s annoying, it is as PPs have said the dishonesty and passive aggressive element.

If you really just can’t make decisions and are happy for other people to choose and are honest about that, that’s ok. I think you could maybe work on it and try to be more decisive for your own benefit, but that’s not what enrages me. It’s people who do the “I don’t mind” thing then moan about what you actually ended up doing. Or even worse my friend who says she doesn’t mind, so I say what my choice is, and then she tries to steer me around to what she actually wants, but won’t actually say it - she just tries to get me to say it so I’ve “made the decision”. I hate it so much but she’s quite timid and sensitive so I find it hard to bring it up.

I think for some people it’s a fear of making a decision in case they’re seen as bossy - or maybe so they don’t feel responsible and can shift the blame onto someone if it was a bad decision. But if you’re going to be controlling or PA about it anyway then it will piss people off.

It can be a bit annoying, but I don’t think it’s rude or passive-aggressive — they probably just don’t want to inconvenience you.

Maybe try a buffet breakfast so they can help themselves, and start saying things like, “We’re doing this today if you’d like to join us.”

The only time it would really bother me is if it goes like:
You: “Where do you want to eat?”
Them: “Oh, anywhere, it’s up to you.”
You: “Okay, let’s go to Wagamama.”
Them: “Oh, I don’t like Wagamama.”
… and then they pull faces at every suggestion you make.

Good luck!

My grandfather used to reply “I’m easy” and dm and my grandmother would say “making us make your decisions is not ‘easy’” and it became a joke. He was a people pleaser so that was a learning curve for him in his 70s.

Let them get their own breakfast, suggest that to them, and leave it to them what to do during the day, you don't have to be together all the time. Try to be laid back. They are in someone else's house and want to please you but are not pleasing you, they need your permission to be themselve.

My DH refuses to make any fucking decisions, leaves it all to me. But then is very quick to say 'why did you do that? Wouldn't it have been better to.....'
😠🔫

Absolutely this. There were definite preferences, not expressed, but expected to be magically known about.

We tried the taking them at their word approach and just setting off - WRONG.

The time wasted - the precious time that could have been spent actually enjoying each other company sometimes became an invisible, unspoken series of tests, which we could only fail.

More trivially (but obviously extremely common judging by this thread) the tea or coffee question. Whichever is easiest! Actually, what is easiest, is you telling me what you want, and I will gladly make it, as neither drink is beyond my capabilities - rather than an extended convo for the umpteenth time about how you can have what you want. Exhausting.

I know I seem in a strop about this, but honestly - life is short, relationships are important, honest and authentic connections with people you care about are valuable. All this PA crap chips away until you dread the visits of such people..

This is imo an excess of politeness all around. With guests and food i offer a choice of two things. I decide the weeks evening meals, shop and cook them . With the offer of "is there anything in particular you'd like"? If not, I make all the decisions. Life is too short for shilly shallying.

I don't think it's rude exactly but it is fucking annoying.

I think a lot of people are brought up to think that having any kind of strong opinion or conviction is rude or a bit forthright or "not something nice people do". Particularly women: a lot of women are raised to speak when they're spoken to and not to be too direct.

I find it really depressing and want to shake them. But its very deeply ingrained.

But they aren’t easy guests. They are incredibly lazy and rude expecting others to do the work of thinking for them.

Very annoying, I agree, it drives me nuts!

Duplicate post reported

Don't ask, tell. So, there's muesli, boiled eggs and salmon for breakfast. Here's the muesli, here's the eggs, here's the salmon and if you want poached eggs there's ramekins and vinegar. Then have your breakfast.
Going out? We're going to X this afternoon.

Whatever you’re having.

That is not indecision. They have decided to have whatever you are having.

Of course, if you are undecided that doesn’t make it any easier for you.

OP whatever you do, never take a job front of house in a pub on any Sunday Lunch, especially not Mothers' Day.

The car park fills up waiting for opening time, every family queues at the bar to order drinks. Mum dad and kids are easily served, but Granny is overcome with surprise that she may have to choose a drink from one of the bottles on display and she is paralysed with indecision. Despite there being a huge queue of other families waiting, she is oblivious and does a great impression of Mavis from Corrie and says ' Well I don't really know'

Bar person resists the urge to show their frustration, after all it happens with almost every family with a granny every Sunday, smiles sweetly and says 'Would you like a sherry?' which usually granny agrees to, leaving the bar person to go through the same process with almost every other family
that arrives.
And still keep smiling.

I think it’s fine as long as they really really don’t mind and will go for anything you suggest. If not at least they could suggest what they don’t want (e.g. I’m not a fan of sushi but anything else is great).

Although some of to examples on here like not knowing what to drink at a bar are just batshit and not representative of the easygoing community.

This is my mother, but she’s been like this as long as I can remember, so nothing to do with age. She thinks it’s ‘rude’ to tell a waiter what she wants to eat directly, and appears to be completely unaware that she’s making his/her job much harder at a big table in a busy restaurant by temporising with successive exclamations of ‘Oh, it all looks so nice, I do t know what to have!’ and looking fixedly at her menu with an air of concentration, as though she has to make a pretence of having to force herself to choose between equally tempting alternatives.

DH entire family is like this, we went a group weekend away with them a couple of years ago and it was torture watching them all dither around and ultimately get nothing done because no one would decide what they wanted.
Then when a decision finally was made we ended up having very little time left to do the actual thing that had been decided on because so much time had been wasted.

But it’s so drippy! To not mind anything and never suggest anything and go along with literally anything suggested – incredibly boring and exhausting for the person on the other end of the “easygoing” personality who doesn’t seem to recognise it’s only easygoing for them.