It may also stem from our vulnerability, our innate fear of rejection that encourages us not to ask for what we want. Oddly, we may not ask but choose to demand what we want instead. Ironically, when we demand, we tell the other person that no choice exists. As adults often say to children, "Do it—or else," "Do it or you will get it." When our demand is fulfilled, we get the material thing we want, but we don't get the immaterial thing we want even more. The unconditional may well not feel like the unconditional when we demand service rather than ask for the gift of someone choosing to and acting freely in our interest. Sadly or not, if we want to receive the unconditional regard of others, it comes generally with exposing ourselves to rejection. Our identity deals with such rejections, no matter how minor, rather badly, and when our identity feels discomfort, our ego strikes out in some way, sometimes against anyone who refuses, and sometimes against our identity that feels the discomfort: "Why should anyone help you?" our ego says to our identity, "You don't deserve any help." It's an unhappy bargain to strike within ourselves to turn things on ourselves, but it makes a kind of peace with our disappointment and minimizes our sense of rejection.
We also can choose to not to ask for something directly but through some form of manipulation. This relates to not asking at all but expecting our need to be fulfilled in any case. In manipulation, we send out some form of message that could indicate our desire for help of some kind, but it doesn't expose us to any direct rejection. Eleanor, my mother, visited us, and she and I were talking. I asked her if she would like a cup of tea. She responded, "Oh no. Don't bother. I'm fine."[146] I got myself some tea, and she said, "That tea looks good." I asked again if she would like some, and again she reasserted her fineness. We talked a little longer, and she said, "You look like you're really enjoying that tea. What kind is it?" I responded by asking her to simply ask me to get her a cup of tea. She demurred once again, and I gave in and got her a cup of tea for which she thanked me by saying, "Oh, thank you, but you didn't need to do that." And she drank her newly won tea quite happily from what she said and what I saw. She even had a second cup, but only when I went for a second cup. We might want to call that polite, but it certainly felt like manipulation.
Others of us choose to put the burden of desire on the person we want to help us. We can ask in the following way, "Would you like to help me do a heavy, dirty, and unpleasant job?" The honest answer to such a question as posed, "Would you like to," is very clearly, "No." Why would anyone like to engage in such an act? If that same person asks another, "Will you please help me with a heavy, dirty, and unpleasant task," we might very honestly answer, "as a friend I want to help you do something that neither of us will like particularly, but if it needs doing, we can do it. We can even enjoy working together, but that still doesn't reach liking to do the act itself. I, for one, rarely wake in the morning looking for heavy, dirty, and unpleasant acts to accomplish for their own sake. I will do so happily and gratefully if I can fulfill the need of another person, sometimes even my own need. In that way, my act becomes a gift, the gift of the unconditional to this other person.
To remain unconditional, the one asked must always have the right to refuse. On the other hand, even in refusal we can say "No" to a specific request and still say "Yes" to our unconditional regard for the other person. Many times, we find it hard to say, and many times we find it hard to hear, but we can learn to trust a "No" as a sign of honest regard. When we care for another person, we want them to act freely with us sharing a mutual trust on both sides. As part of that, it will help us maintain that feeling when we feel free to say "No" when appropriate. That way, we can also ask freely because we trust the other person to respond honestly. Eventually, it all works out quite well, and the person who speaks the "No" also has no obligation to explain why, to defend that "No."
When we speak honestly to each other, when we speak in deepest trust of the other, we may find ourselves faced with a critical moment. We may well run into a "No" we did not expect. We may well run into a meaning perspective of our own or of the other person that brings us to a realization of some kind, and sometimes that's a rather uncomfortable realization. As with other critical moments, we may feel a very real if not profound cognitive dissonance which we will want to resolve if we want to live through our honesty of the becoming self rather than the occasionally self-justifying dishonesty of our identity and our ego.
This discussion will take us somewhat beyond the limits of this writing, but we will look at it briefly. When we operate out of our vulnerable identity, we strive to feel liked, sometimes at any cost. That introduces a dangerous element into relationships which asserts itself in the first date delusion. It begins as an unspoken agreement. Both parties on a first date delude themselves and each other into being and acting like a different person than the one they feel themselves to be. This comes from wanting to be liked. Seeing this baldly, the irony nearly jumps out. In the first date delusion, we desperately want someone to like us, so we pretend to be someone else. In that case, we, our actual selves, are not liked at all because we haven't allowed ourselves to turn up for the date at all. The more we feel liked in this delusional state, the more we feel inadequate in ourselves. If we can't be liked for ourselves in that we pretend to be someone else whom does get liked, then what of value do we see ourselves? Polly likes Chinese food, and the actually Mack hates it, but he tells her what she wants to hear: "I love Chinese food, too." That shows her how compatible they are. Mack likes blood and gore movies, and the actual Polly hates blood and gore moves, but she tells him what he wants to hear, "I love blood and gore movies." That really shows how compatible they are. In all this apparent funniness and silliness, something very insidious happens especially when the relationship turns into an attempt at any real closeness and permanence.
After some length of time, the truth will turn up, and it may well do so when one or the other asks a simple question. She says, "Let's go out to Chinese food." He refuses, "No, I hate Chinese food." Polly feels shocked and betrayed. When he wants to go to a blood and gore movie, he gets the same sort of refusal, "No, I really hate those movies." Then they may shift into a very accusatory fight about who lied to whom. Food and movies may seem trivial, but it could just as well be about how they should use money or whether they should have children and how to care for them. They may find in the long term that their essential values, and perhaps the meaning perspectives behind them, are stunningly divergent. At that point, they will face a reality of self and other that they may not feel remotely prepared to deal with. This serves as a kind of relationship cognitive dissonance.
We must always have the right to refuse a request, but we may need to deal with past lies and current realities that will feel very difficult indeed when those refusals come as a very unpleasant surprise. Speaking compassionately very much includes our thoughtful honesty and authenticity.