I don't care.

[clockworkpixel]

[this is seperate from my earlier long post, just to keep things clear]

"Why is it that people can't seem to understand that when I say 'I don't care.' what I actually mean is 'I don't care.'
It may be a 'All option are great/mediocre/bad, so any one would be great/mediocre/bad.' sort of 'I don't care.', or it might be a 'I'm too tired to care.' sort of 'I don't care.', or it might be a 'I can not be bothered to give a shit at this time.' sort of 'I don't care.', or sometimes it's even a 'I'm really depressed so everything is shit, and any of those options will be equal amounts of shit, but no more or less shit than sitting here and staring at the wall.' sort of 'I don't care.'
But all of those types all work out to 'I don't care.' anyway.
Yet almost every time someone asks me something and I say 'I don't care.' they ask me over and over again which one I want, and get offended when I say 'I don't care.'. Or worse they try and pawn the decision off on me, so we do the 'Do you want fu or bar?' 'I don't care.' 'No really, which one do you want?' 'I don't care.' 'Well I want you to make a decision.'
If I don't care I'm obviously not the one to be making the decision. What makes it worse is I'll just pick one at random to get it over with and half the time they'll comment and/or whine about how they wanted the other option.
Or they do the 'Do you want fu or bar?' 'I don't care.' 'What do you mean you don't care?' 'I mean that I don't care., then I get some varient of 'Well you must have an opinion.' or 'Why don't you care?'. the one universal I've discovered in this direction of conversation is the one thing guaranteed to get them incerdibly pissed is to be 100% honest and tell them which variety of 'I don't care.' it is.

Maybe 'I don't care.' is too compicated and I need to come up with something simpler. But I can't figure out how to get it much simpler. Perhaps I can use 'I do not care.', it adds a word, but makes them all one sylable."

Comments

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

but when it's a decision related to you, expecting other people to make it for you is rather rude. Honestly, I have enough trouble making decisions for ME, I really can't take the increased responsibility of making them for my friends too. Like if I am going to the trouble of making you breakfast and you won't even pick one of the options I am giving you it tells me that I should stop wasting my effort. I mean *I* sure as hell don't care what you eat for breakfast, as long as it doesn't make you ill (and I would hope that none of the options in my kitchen would).

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

perhaps you would get further if you could say "I don't care - what do you want?" when it is actually a decision affecting more than you. Just "I don't care" doesn't really prompt any response from the other person. If you expect them to make a decision when you can't or don't want to then you should indicate this somehow to them.

good point

[pixel.livejournal.com]

"Hmm... Good point. Perhaps a large part of the problem is one of grammar and word choice. I'll try and be better about that in the future."

Care

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe "I'm indifferent to the choices" would work better.

Julie

Attendez vous! Lecture erumpant.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

Subtext! Viz:

Opening gambit: "What do you want to see tonight?"
Meaning: I am interested in seeing [a movie?] with you. I am indicating (truly or falsely--time will tell) that your enjoyment of the evening is of interest to me as well, and that I would like to undertake this adventure with you as an equal. I have broached the subject of what we will do. I am offering you the opportunity to help direct the evening. We are, in fact, entering a more-or-less complicated mini-negotiation about who gets to decide what, who takes care of whom in what way, whose tastes and interests are most weighted for the nonce, and other stuffs. I have asked you to begin engaging me in a subtle--hopefully mutually pleasurable--social dance or game. I have made a widely recognized formal opening move.

Response:"I don't care."
Received meaning: I am not interested in dancing with you, and I don't appreciate your interest in me. [additional spin optional: I want you to take care of me/leave me alone and I'm not going to help you. If you try to drag me through the steps, I will act like a dork and then say "What's WRONG? You WANTED me to dance with you!"]

*Errrrrrt!* CRASH!

People may have more or less investment in having their dance requests received graciously, and will stress correspondingly. Some people will not stress at all. This is not always a good sign. Sometimes it is OK--patience/understanding from someone who cares about you. But I'm thinking it's best not to continually test that patience? I, um, have some experience here.

One is welcome not to care what one sees tonight, but if one wants to keep things going smoothly, one will either go through the motions or explicitly address the subtext.

How about the following?:

Opener: "What do you want to see tonight?"

Response: "Well, I am feeling kind of blah and indecisive, but I do want to spend time with you. [addresses subtext of whether mutual interest exists] Would you do me a favor and choose for us tonight? [addresses problem of form--who knows whether it's a favor? but the formal next move *is* yours, so them taking it is, formally, a favor, and something that "should" be asked for explicitly rather than dumped on them by default, even if it *is* sort of a game to be the first person to ask "what do you want to do?"] I'll pick next time, and I won't whine about what you choose." [optional? seems to be a fair trade for making them choose]

One will rarely go wrong by practicing graciousness. It works with parents, too, or so I hear, if it doesn't give them fatal heart attacks first.

I grant that it is hard to be gracious when one is cranky. I am often cranky.

Lecture mode off.

Och. This is what I get for cyberstalking.

Re: Attendez vous! Lecture erumpant.

[pixel.livejournal.com]

"But that's not really relevant. I'm not talking about in social situations such as that. I'm talking about just little fairly pointless things. Like 'What do you want for breakfast?' 'Do you want to leave now, or hang around?'

A f'instance. The conversation that sparked the post was with my mother.
'Do you want us to go up and mow the lawn and do [bunch of other stuff] today, or wait for another day?'
"I don't care."
'Well when do you want to do it?'
"I don't care."
'Well I want you to make a decision.'

We ere going to do it that day, but it was intermittant showers. It made absolutely no difference to me, and so I said I didn't care so she could go with whatever she prefered. It didn't work out that neatly."

Re: Attendez vous! Lecture erumpant.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I think this is exactly what I was referring to above. that conversation didn't go anywhere because you dodged the responsibility for making the decision without actually throwing it back into her court and asking her to make the decision.

I think the above lecture was relevant in one way - "I don't care" indicates, to the listener, a complete lack of interest in ALL options. Though in this case I suppose you probably weren't terribly interested in mowing the lawn either day. Still, you were at least willing to do it, so saying something like "I am willing to do it today, or tomorrow, or this weekend" would be more positive and less likely to annoy the person asking. I know, that's a terribly lot of words to have to expend on something one doesn't care about :)

Re: Attendez vous! Lecture erumpant.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

What she said.