I have a difficult life and I'm growing very tired of this question. I've even had to ask some of my neighbors not to greet me that way.
1) You are putting it on me to tell you that I need something, right in the middle of my need. 2) If you're my real friend you don't need to say that, I already know I can call you 24/7/365 3) Your willingness to help is nulled by your lack of initiative.
The best thing anyone ever did was call me and say "I'm at Costco. What do you need? And don't say 'nothing'. I'm going to bring you something, and that's that." That whole pizza and frozen burritos were bad for me, but the last thing I needed on my mind at that time was cooking. And that's what true friends are there for.
So don't say "If you need anything let me know!" It's borderline passive aggressive.
The statement "let me know if you need anything" has a different meaning depending on what it was reasonable to ask already.
It adds no information, due to the meaning of "anything" being entirely contextual.
If I know that they know that the relationship is fairly close, affirming it is a nice thing to do, especially if I'm feeling badly.
But if the relationship is not so close and/or I'm uncertain whether it's appropriate to ask a favor, I can imagine feeling antagonized by the form of an offer which is not really an offer or clarification of where we stand.
If there is ambiguity, there remains ambiguity, is how I see it.
That’s the purpose of the statement. The person you’re saying it to should have a vague idea of what is a reasonable ask depending on relationship, and if not, they will just get denied. But it is genuine.
If I’m at a store, and my coworker asks me to grab a pack of gum, I’ll do it. If they ask me to go to a store 15 min away for something, I’m going to say no, but they probably would not ask me that anyway. But if a close family member asks, I would go to the different store.
@geocrasher seems to not realize that the people around he/she could be taking a cautious position to avoid getting into his/her business without it being requested.
I understand your point and i know it's a difficult question to deal with sometimes, especially during depression.
But remember that you're not those people's top priority. That sentence means you are allowed to ask them for stuff, but it doesn't mean they're going to drop everything and take you into their care right now without you taking a few steps on your own. They consider that you have enough of your own agency.
Your willingness to be helped is nulled by that same lack of initiative on your part.
A trick is to find something easy to ask for, as a go-to response to that. For example, the next time someone says that to you, you could answer:
"Actually, life has been tough lately, a beer would be nice".
What would have been better? To just say "I'm sorry you're having a hard time". If you don't mean something, don't say it.
I don't personally say that sentence outside of a work context; usually I would say "call me if you need to talk", but I won't take proactive action unless I believe my friend either wants me to or need me to.
At the end of the day, someone makes a choice to interpret this as a platitude. How about taking up the person on their offer?
Unless the person saying it had access to some experimental treatment my doctors don't know about, there really was nothing they could have done to help me. I knew it and they knew it.
So while I didn't get angry at them (because I knew they said it because didn't know how to react differently), it did annoy me as it was basically an empty promise.
I'm sorry about the situation you are/were in. That must have been very difficult.
But there is a difference between empty platitudes such as "thoughts and prayers" and a genuine albeit abbreviated "I'm your friend and I love you, I don't know how I could help you, but if you know, don't hesitate to ask on account of it being too much."
While it may seem like I am being oversensive about the subject, it is understandable because I left out a large part of the context. When you have heard of this phrase hundreds of times over multiple years by people who were not in the position to help you in the least bit, it becomes a meaningless platitude.
It's like forgiveness, if you forgive someone, the main benefit is to you. By forgiving someone you take a load off your own shoulders. It's often meaningless to them if those forgiven know they are.
I would like to be told by a friend that they care about me and would like to help in some way if they can. What I wouldn't like is if they said "OK, I'm going to choose a thing that I think I would want in your situation and do it for you, and you have no choice because I'm going to do it anyway." Chances are, what you thought was helpful is NOT what I need in a difficult moment and I don't want to be subjected to another person's choices being superimposed on my situation. Lucky for me I know that my friend feels the same way, and we have different ways of approaching these things with each other because of it.
"I'm at Costco. What do you need? And don't say 'nothing'. I'm going to bring you something, and that's that" seems incredibly aggressive to me, and if I had many friends who behaved that way I would be endlessly frustrated.