I’m STILL not comfortable with that

People really don’t like hearing “I’m not comfortable with that” from me. Tonight my weirdo neighbour wanted me to watch his 120lb golden for him over the holiday week. I don’t even like this neighbour. He always calls my house and asks for “Brenda”, like my name is “Brenda”.

I had already told him that I was going to be on vacation for part of that time. Then he said, well maybe you could play with him in the evenings. Yeah, right. Like after I get home after being gone for 12 hours, I want to go play with some one elses dog. I hardly want to play with my dog in the evenings.

I told him that I really wasn’t comfortable with the whole situation. I told him that I didn’t want to leave Daisy alone with his dog for 12 hours a day. Let’s just say this, his dog is male and is “in love” with Daisy. Now, if Daisy and this dog had spent any time together at all, maybe things would be different. But, they don’t. I keep her far away, because she has issues with bigger dogs and I’m afraid he might try and mount her.

The more I told this man I wasn’t comfortable with the whole situation, the more he tried to get me to help him. I kept following my self assertiveness training… I said “I’m not comfortable with that” 50 some odd times. I kept thinking in my head, Gene (my therapist) how often do I have to say this before I get mad?

Then I did get mad, and I said, “I don’t want to be at all responsible for your animal” and walked as fast as I could away from this man. You know, he followed me, trying to get me to change my mind the whole way. The only reason why I stopped walking is because Daisy had to poo.

I think that when people are so used to you bending over backwards for them, when you say, NO, they don’t want to hear you. Worse than that, they hear “I’m not comfortable with that” as “I don’t really want to, but I could be persuaded to change my mind”.

Mom gave me an out saying that she didn’t want the dog in her house, but I really felt it was important for me to take care of it. I’m not really sure I like how I handled it, but I’m new at being assertive. I’m sure I will be messy about it from time to time, ok well, my first two times have been messy, but I’m trying. I just need to figure out how not to get angry and still be assertive. Right now, I seem to need to get angry to make it happen.