A contrast crystallized for me today: One place where Ask Culture falls apart is in the concept of Microaggressions. There are, in fact, times when it is not generally okay to Just Ask, They Can Always Say No.
I feel like documenting microaggressions is a whole separate post that I’m not really qualified to summarize right here; but the go-to example of a microaggression is asking a Black person (out of nowhere) if you can touch their hair. Do not do this thing. It is not an okay thing to ask, even under an Ask Culture mindset.
It can be hard to know where the invisible lines are. But this one is pretty easy! But it might not be easy for everyone; hence the post.
The first thing I’d like to share here is the concept of Ask Culture and Guess Culture.
I first learned about this on Captain Awkward’s blog, back in…2010? 2011? Something like that. It really made an impression on me, and shaped how I think about all of my interactions.
I am, myself, a strongly Ask Person. I ask for things ALL THE TIME, and I often let people know pre-emptively “It’s okay if the answer is no!” when I do so. But many of my friends are Guess People, and I’m trying to be more cognizant of that when I’m interacting with folks.
My best example of how this plays out awkwardly is a conversation I had with a friend a few years ago – my daughter (“Rosie”) and her older son (“Dash”) are about the same age, and I needed to get something done on a day my husband was busy, so I asked if she could watch Rosie for me. She hemmed and hawed for a while, so I said “It’s okay if you can’t!” to which she replied “Yeah, I’d love to but it’s just that I have Jack-Jack’s birthday that day, so I’ll be hosting 20 toddlers at the house and I just don’t think I can keep an eye on Rosie too.” I was HORRIFIED that she had even CONSIDERED saying yes to my request – if I had known it was Jack-Jack’s birthday, I wouldn’t have even asked her to watch my kid. But from her perspective, she would never ask unless she desperately needed the help; so she was weighing if she could give me this help in the context of her own life. And I’m sure that if I had been having a true emergency, she would have helped or helped me find someone who could! But we weren’t talking Emergency Appendectomy here.
So if you find yourself in conflict with your friends or family members, or even co-workers (though the rules can be different there), consider: Is this a result of different request styles? And if so, can you use the Ask vs. Guess framework to communicate better with your loved ones?
August 2022 update: A friend recently linked to this essay, “They Might Say No,” and it reminded me a great deal of the Ask/Guess dichotomy, so I’m adding it to this essay!
Additionally, doing an idle Google search found me a couple more takes on this concept, from The Guardian and Scary Mommy. So, I figured I’d share those for additional perspective.
March 2023 update: Found this TikTok about translating conversations that can take place between people who are neurotypical and people who have autism. It’s very similar to Ask/Guess!
Emilybook 