Hey Brooke! Ok – I’ve got a “response” question. This last weekend, my partner had his high school friend and the high school friend’s wife stay over at our home. My partner told me “they want coffee” – and since my Mom (a BIG coffee drinker) came to visit, I became the officially designated “coffee maker” (which I don’t mind, because it’s not brain surgery – and honestly, it’s mildly entertaining.) My partner tells me specifically “Make 12 cups” – which is a ginormous amount of coffee, but I agree to do so the night before. The next morning, I get up – and go to make the coffee – and high school friend is up. He tells me he doesn’t drink coffee – but his wife does – and knowing that only 1 person out of 4 drink coffee, I cut the amount from 12 cups to 8 cups. (Obviously, this is a life-and-death story of epic proportions). Anyway, 2 things happen. FIRST – when he gets up, my partner repeatedly makes comments about “Why didn’t you make 12 cups?” and “You should have made 12 cups” and “Didn’t I ask you to make 12 cups. I’m confused”. SECOND – I guess the coffee was REALLY strong (which I realized my Mom’s coffee directions were for a smoker who can barely taste coffee), so wife kept asking me “Did you do something wrong with the coffee?” and “Were you sure you added enough water?” and “This coffee is pretty bad”. 🙂
Ok. So here’s the deal – I felt really awesome about making the coffee! LOL! I mean – it was still a fun process (again, easily entertained) and I think because of the SCS work, I didn’t take it personally. I heard the comments – but I didn’t feel compelled to defend myself or explain myself. And ultimately, the comments stopped.
However, I’m wondering – Is there a way to respond to this, to give an explanation, that’s not defensive. I don’t want to be like “I’m not wrong here, folks. I did this because…” Or is it okay to be like … “You’re right. There aren’t 12 cups” and “Hmmm… weird about the coffee” – or should I just be silent and creepily smile at them until they leave the house. 😉
I just wondering how, when the arguing and defensiveness stops – how do you respond to people who seem to want an answer about something that’s not bothering you? I love them both – and see they want specific things – but my thought was “I did the best I could with the information I had at the time” – and that was good enough for me.
Thoughts?
