Actually, I'm quite good at saying no. Take those annoying phone calls you get when you're busy having snooze in the chair, and there's a woman on the line wondering if you're considering replacing your kitchen.
No, sorry ... To be perfectly honest, I say, I haven't even got a kitchen. Just a little camping stove in the corner. Sorry.
'Oh'
See. That's the best kind of polite no. Nobody gets hurt.
But saying no depends on who's asking me to say yes. That is, it depends on whether I'm dealing with someone who's not going to take no for an anwer. Such as .. well, family.
'Dad, can we have our crisps upstairs?'
'No ...'
Oh Dad...'
OK. don't make a mess. Don't tell your mother.
My assertivness training mainly comes unstuck when my wife wants something and sometimes 'no' simply isn't one of the answers on her sheet, though her favoured approach is the lesser-of-two-evils method, 'So do you want to sweep the backyard? Or ... get divorced?
There's really only one way to get the last word, and for that word to be no. Take for example my wife's subtle way of arranging something horrible without my knowledge.
'I've put us down for the barn dance on the 25th.'
What?
'You don't mind do you?
No absolutely not. No ... no...
