Politeness Fights

Do your ever find yourself having politeness fights? That's what my brother and I would call them as we rolled our eyes at the bickering adults. We'd be out to dinner with my aunt or something and both her and my mom would try to pay the check. We always thought it was funny that even though they were both really trying to be generous, that they'd actually get all upset about it. "Oh no, absolutely not - I'm not letting you pay for your dinner. This is on me. NO. This is on ME. NO. Take back your money. Take it. Take it back!" Finally, one of them would defeatedly accept but threaten to pay for dinner next time.

Now that I'm older, I find that I've picked up my mom's politeness fighting habit. What can I say? She raised me not to accept offerings from other people if I didn't have to. Perhaps to her it's a matter of pride and independence along with being polite - and I can understand that, but now I see how annoying it is when you want to do something nice for someone and they just won't accept.

This happens to me now when the matter of lunch comes up at work. Most of the time, I don't mind going and picking something up and will pick up for my boss as well. He'll insist on paying for both of our lunches and sometimes I will kindly thank him, sometimes I will fight it. "No, you bought lunch for me last time. Let me get yours this time. Well, I can at least pay for my own. Really." as he pulls out his wallet, shaking his head. I try refusing his money and this usually ends up with him throwing the cash on my desk and saying "Take it. Take the motherfucking money! And thank you!" And I know, that should be cool and everything but I just don't want to seem like I'm expecting it or something. I'm getting better at just accepting things with a "thank you" but it doesn't feel right if I don't protest at least a little bit.