Why I never ask anyone for help
Six grocery bags in your hands, fingers going white, the lift out of order. Someone offers to take one, and you say no, no, I'm fine.
It isn't pride. The sum is done before they finish offering: the time it takes to explain, the bother, the face they'll make. Simpler to do it yourself. And there's the other thing, the one you know without saying it: to ask is to accept that someone could say no. So you don't ask. You carry the six bags, you move flats with nobody, you sit up all night with the file.
And it works. That's what bothers me a little: you almost always pull it off.
What it takes is quiet. The people around you come to believe you need nothing, and they stop offering. You end up with the bags in your hands, and somewhere you note that nobody came.
To ask is to accept that someone could say no. So you don't ask.
I was wondering…
Who are you hoping will notice, without you ever having to say a word?