Why it's okay to be a people pleaser

And we're asking the wrong people to set boundaries.

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One of my neighbours is a friendly builder with a white van. He once approached me saying, “I’ve got a couple of shelving units in the van if you want them. I cleared them from a house and I’m taking them to the tip. But you can have them if you like. They’re nice. They’re in good nick.”

I know immediately that I don’t want these shelving units regardless of what condition they are in. I don’t want them as there is not a single free inch of wall space to put them up against in my flat. If I take them I will have to put them in the middle of the room and walk around them. Like some kind of central pillar. I cannot tell you how much I don’t want or need these shelving units.

“They’re black,” he adds. I thought I couldn’t want them any less. It turns out I could. Even if I did fancy a shelving pillar in the middle of the room, black is not going to fit in with my décor. I’ve got pale floors and walls. The only things black in my flat are the TV remote control and all my clothes.

Bearing this in mind, here is my response to my neighbour: “Oh great!”

Because I don’t want him to think I’m turning my nose up at these shelving units. That I’m too good for them. Because it would say, I’m better than you. I’ve got better taste and more money as I can afford to buy the units to my exact requirements. I know better than you about whether I want or need or have room for this furniture.

Which is all ridiculous as he clearly just wants to save a trip to the dump. If I take these units off his hands, he won’t have to make sure he’s got his ID, drive there, park, find the right place to put them, get them out, throw them on the pile and then drive home.

But this makes me feel under even more pressure to take them. By not rehousing them, I’m forcing him to take an hour out of his busy day. And what if he had an accident and lost a leg? That would be my fault.

So I’m deciding which room in my flat would best suit a black pillar when my partner Tom appears. The neighbour repeats his spiel about these shelving units in good nick and this is what Tom does in less than a minute:

1. Says he’ll have a look.

2. Looks at them.

3. Decides he doesn’t like them.

4. Politely declines.

5. Walks away.

I’m breathless in admiration. He’s seen them and he still has the courage to say no. There has been no lengthy internal monologue. It was all that simple.

He later describes the units as black, massive and shiny. And there were three of them. I realised if Tom hadn’t come out, I’d now have a black, massive, shiny pillar in 50% of the rooms of my home.

Or I would’ve had to hire a van for two days and load it up with the units in the dead of the night when there’s no chance the neighbour could see me. Then park near the dump until it was open in the morning.

Despite all this, I would only describe myself as a mild people pleaser. A sometimes people pleaser. I say this as anyone who’s ever been in a long-term relationship with me would laugh at the fact I have a disorder which compels me to please people. They’d be googling what the opposite of this was.

And surely the literal opposite is someone who doesn’t want to please people. And they sound kind of horrible. They are the people who with some pride say things like ‘I’m sorry but I just tell it like it is’ and ‘I don’t have a filter’.

So what is so terrible about being a people pleaser? Why are there pages and pages of Google dedicated to advice on how to cure yourself of this? Why is there a best-selling book entitled The Disease to Please? Disease! I mean, I think we all know why they went with that and it’s not because it really makes any sense.

It just seems to me that the diseased ones are the nice ones and it only becomes a problem when the non-diseased ones take advantage of them.

Perhaps it’s these not-nice people who should change their ways. Like having therapy about learning to set boundaries and not making unreasonable demands and foisting three huge black shelving units off on me.

So people pleasers, keep breaking into a jog on the zebra crossing so as not to keep the cars waiting. Carry on being nice. And get a Tom to use as a buffer if a neighbour tries to offload two grotty three-piece suites and a gun cabinet.