When Favor Sharks Circle

Dear Abby addresses a huge, boundary-crossing ask from a favor-shark. In this case, a woman's brother-in-law, who has "selflessly" performed favors for her over the years, has become angry with her because she won't accept an "offer" to become a nanny three days a week to his newborn baby.

Abby's response is pretty good:

You are not "crazy," so don't feel guilty for refusing to allow your sister and brother-in-law to push you into something with which you are not comfortable. That they would expect you to become their babysitter without first discussing it with your partner (legal or not) is somewhere between sneaky and presumptuous.

You say your relationship with your twin and her husband is "somewhat strained." Well, it appears to be that way because you sense a lack of respect from them. That is the issue you should straighten out with her. As for her hubby, he needs to understand that: 1. You are happy working with your father in the business, and 2. Removing garbage, clearing snow and dealing with mechanical issues are not remotely equivalent to devoting three days every week to taking care of a baby. [bold added]

I have been presented with similar outlandish proposals more times than you might believe in my life, including someone hoping to foist a dog on me, and a proposal made to me in all seriousness that I let a troubled young man move into my home with my young children. (Neither my "being a mentor" nor the "free child 'care'" sweetened that second deal for me.)

In such cases, including the one at Dear Abby, the proposer -- favor-shark or not -- seems simultaneously (1) oblivious to how big an ask the "favor" is to the person it is being asked of, (2) inordinately focused on the fact that the proposed recipients are "needy", and yet also (3) engaged in magical thinking as to how the proposed arrangement will work out in real life.

(I suspect that this is just another example of altruism functioning as a mental kill switch. Why should someone who possesses something of value factor in to how it is used? How could something so "noble" as a human sacrifice fail to make everything magically work out?)

It's happened enough that I eventually came up with a succinct answer that I think even many people who have not given much thought to the underlying philosophical issues can understand: That is the kind of commitment I owe only to someone I have brought into the world or married. (And yes, that goes for adopting a dog!)

Abby is right that the favors being sharked aren't the equivalent to the "repayment" being demanded, but the issue is deeper than that. As Ayn Rand put it:

Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow men? None -- except the obligation I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality. I deal with men as my nature and theirs demands: by means of reason. I seek or desire nothing from them except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice. It is only with their mind that I can deal and only for my own self-interest, when they see that my interest coincides with theirs. When they don't, I enter no relationship; I let dissenters go their way and I do not swerve from mine. I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs. [bold added]

The favor-sharking is an attempt to pretend that the mark has entered a voluntary relationship when that is not the case, and the earlier link about that practice has a couple of suggestions about how to deal with it.

-- CAV