One common phrase of mine is “no problem” when responding to someone who is either thanking me for something I did for them, or when responding to someone who is apologizing for some way they believed they slighted me. If you are one of the people who take issue with my reply of “no problem,” then this post is for you.
Your insistence that I feel the same way as you did about what just happened, and also accept your genuine sorrow for what just happened, is more of a problem than the original problem.
In fact, when I say, “no problem,” that is a cue for you to drop it, because you having said the thanks or apology in the first place is more bothersome and tedious than what you believed were the original problem, which actually truly was not a problem.
A lot of the people who seem to figuratively recoil in horror that I would dare say such a thing as “no problem” to their belief that a problem did actually happen between us that they believed required either thanks or apology, seem largely in disbelief that I could, in fact, actually have no problem with what just happened. Those people are living in a dream world.
If you require me to believe that what just happened requires your thanks or apology, then that is entirely in your own mind, and seems to skip the step of checking with me first to see whether it was genuinely an imposition to me.
If I say it is no problem, then you blathering on about it becomes an additional problem, and arguably a more severe problem than whatever it was you believed problematic which I just dismissed.
If you are genuinely interested in receiving my acceptance of your apology, then you must also be genuinely receptive to whether I believed it to not be a problem and therefore requiring no thanks or apology to even accept. I will not accept your interpretation that what just happened as a problem.
If you believe the interaction to still be a problem, despite my having claimed that it wasn’t, then you are not genuinely interested in my interpretation, and therefore my acceptance of your thanks or apology would likewise also not be genuine because you lack the ability to even genuinely grasp my position to begin with.
Do not assign me feelings. I will feel how I uniquely feel, without your help.