1. Asking for help is OK and normal;
2. Saying “no” to that is also OK and normal.

Unfortunately, in my adult life, I’ve been finding out — often to my own detriment, and sometimes with irrevocable damage to relationships — that a lot of people seem to believe the exact opposite. They never ask for help (except perhaps to their close family, and even then they feel terrible about it), and become shocked — and offended, and/or hurt — when asked.

Apparently, when person A ask person B for help, person B has two choices: either feel terrible for not helping, or feel terrible with him/herself (and resent the other person) for not being strong enough to say “no”. There are no other possibilities, it seems. Helping is something terrible, which harms the helper immensely, but saying “no” also makes the would-be helper feel like a monster; therefore, the asker committed a hideous sin just by asking, as if he or she ignored an unspoken rule or protocol: “thou shalt not ask”.

Am I so weird for believing that there’s nothing wrong with either asking or refusing? That we’re all in this together, that there should be no forbidden subjects between friends or more, that if one can’t or doesn’t feel like he/she should help, it’s perfectly OK?

I’ve seen this phenomenon for more than a decade (hi, ex-wife), and even this week I’ve talked to several people who absolutely and completely disagree with me (asking is infinitely wrong and even abusive, because it “forces” the askee to either sacrifice him/herself or feel like a heartless monster, and so on). Is this widespread? Or just a part of Portuguese culture? Anyone from outside Portugal want to share their thoughts?

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