I did point it out to her once and told her that if she needs my help with something, she needs to just ask because I'm not good at picking up these sorts of social cues.

Ever since then I've stuck to that.

@hybridhavoc In our home (M 62 F 69), this is more complicated. On one hand, yes, my wife falls into indirect communication instead of just asking, but that's usually when she's insecure about something in specific: eg, that I'm too busy with a work thing, or she's embarrassed because it's a task she feels like she should have been capable of doing herself.

On the other hand, she and other women have told me clearly that sometimes when they gripe, they just want to gripe, NOT have a man step in and "solve" the problem for them. My mom, suffering from dementia, nailed it: "oh, honey, haven't you figured this out yet? Sometimes, a woman just wants you to say, 'there, there.'"

Finally out can be cultural, too: when our daughter went to Turkey on a State Department exchange, they taught her that Turks culturally use VERY indirect communication, and after a year there, she confirmed it's true: a mom, wishing child 1 would study harder, might go on a long ramble about how she wishes child 2 (a straight A student) would study harder, in front of child 1.

@mike Not sure.

I liked Ricky's 2nd paragraph. Many boomer women feel uncomfortable asking/demanding a thing, so making a story and inviting you to infer the thing that they need doing is 'safer' and more in keeping with their perceived gender roles.

@fmhilton I don't know if it's always helpless, but often women do things in a group dynamic more than men do, so the consensus of the group is important, but yeah some of it is straight up damsel in distress bullshit, no one needs!

But I do think that considering the group dynamic often makes women good managers.

There can (and not saying this is your instance) be a manipulative/abusive aspect for it.

I’ll try and illustrate with a situation where there’s only one slice of birthday cake left and you wanna eat it.

“I am going to eat the last slice of birthday cake” - considered rude as you didn’t ask everyone else first
“Mind if I eat the last slice of birthday cake?” - generally good, you’ve shown you care about everyone’s desire of cake, but stated your express desire to be the one to eat it.
“I’m really stlll quite hungry, I haven’t eaten much today, would it bother anyone if I eat the last slice of cake?” - you’ve over justified so people don’t judge you. You have an excuse on why you want to eat the cake, cos god forbid you just wanna eat the cake! Prove why you are worth having the last slice!

And lastly the most manipulative one (not necessarily consciously, but can be). But also is very much a jaded experience as this is how my family members will express themselves with the specific goal of making sure THEY get the last slice of cake.

“Ricki, would YOU like the last slice of cake?” I am pretending that I don’t want the last slice of cake. I am appearing nice, offering it to you. But I know that you will feel guilty if you take the cake and you will want to be nice and offer it to ME instead. And then I can go “oh go on then, if you don’t mind” as if you didn’t want the cake but since you’re so lovely, I’ll indeed have a cheeky last slice of cake. This was my plan all along, but I managed to get that cake without ever letting you know I wanted the cake and would have been pissed at you if you, Ricki, did accept the cake.

Yeah... I've seen it in my mom's side of the family -- they're from Iowa and very conservative, Christian.

But my mom herself was a beatnik -- as in she did LSD with Ken Kesey and the "Further" bus gang on a beach in Mexico -- more like Jack Kerouac than Martha Stewart.

So I'm in Alice's camp here... the women in my life are extremely opinionated.

(She's going be be 83 on Mar. 11th, and is writing her memoirs... it's been eye-opening, because there's so much she never told us. Looking back, it's clear that she had liberated herself. She was one of the women who helped coined the term "liberated woman" by BEING that thing, and causing other people to react to it for better or worse.)

@Tattooed_mummy
I’m definitely not demure then. I have zero problem asking for what I want or need. One can do that without being pushy or rude. “Hey honey, I’d like to go out to dinner tonight. I was thinking that new brew pub we visited last month would be nice. What do you think? I’ll buy!”

Any man who has an issue with that would not be in my life.