reason help: If someone thanks you… Is is diminishing to say “No problem.”? - Help.com

Usually when I hear it, it means they didn’t mind helping me with something. Although when I say it, it usually means “For you, it is no problem” as in I would help them with anything.

zeroedin wrote:
Sometimes I say it and I believe that they think it’s the former because of the tone.

exact;y - it’s the tone and not the words.

I think you should just say

“Fo’ real”

“No problem” in response to “Thank you” is quite informal. That’s why it has no straightforward meaning. To me, “No problem” usually means that the person was genuinely glad to help you. Although some people could use it sarcastically, which of course means the opposite. That’s why if someone thanks me, I always respond with “Anytime”. You can’t go wrong with that one.

Most of the time it means they didn’t mind helping you with something. Making it a positive response.

Can’t you just say “you’re welcome”?
But “no problem” is not diminishing if said with a proper tone, as people on the above already wrote.

Depends exactly how you say it and why.

It depends a lot on culture as well. In some cultures, it’s an insult to say it was no problem because it means the thing was insignificant to you. Basically you didn’t care. If a person wanted to do the best response, that would probably be something more like, “The problems seemed insignificant compared to the satisfaction I gained by aiding you.” Or something odd. No problem is quicker ^^

“The problems seemed insignificant compared to the satisfaction I gained by aiding you.” - say that out aloud. Looks good on paper maybe and in theory but I can’t imagine anything other than, at best, awkwardness. I think the best would be a simple “Thank you”. Most cultures I can imagine would get this.

It’s a formal way of speaking and it conveys a complete meaning through a lot of words. Most people just say things like “thanks” or “no problem” because they talk little. Or, the best one of all, if you ask someone who they’re doing and they say, “fine.” ^^ Personally, I’d just say no problem, and then explain further if they take offense at it, but assume that they won’t.

RestlessWarriorSimba wrote:
if I didn’t mean the words, I wouldn’t have helped out in the first place.

The odd thing is, some people do that. They help to be polite, while really they don’t care. It’s more annoying than someone declining.

DarkSnow wrote:

RestlessWarriorSimba wrote:
if I didn’t mean the words, I wouldn’t have helped out in the first place.

The odd thing is, some people do that. They help to be polite, while really they don’t care. It’s more annoying than someone declining.

I would find it quite funny. I would think “ha, fools wasting his/her time helping me when he/she doesn’t even care. What a moron. I need this persuadable idiot to do more for me…”

I gave that way of doing things up 3 years ago ^^ And it has saved a few lives.

Saved a few lives? Whoa there, explain. You can’t just leave it at that. I’m curious now.

At some point in my life, I realized destroying and controlling people is a ridiculously easy thing to do. And that I might as well stop doing it. Helping people is much more of a challenge and keeps me interested longer. After I stopped doing that, a few people who tried to backstab me actually got to leave my life quietly and while still sane ^^ Lucky them, a few years earlier and that wouldn’t have been the case.

I didn’t say anything about destroying or controlling. Just if a person feels they need to help and don’t want to, they don’t need to. But if they do, under their own steam and say it didn’t mean anything, or make it clear it didn’t mean anything, that this isn’t to be taken as a loss.
A few people backstab. That’s life. But if someone backstabs and does it’s a person who does. They don’t have to. But my point is, why let the meaning be a negative.

In my life, there’s little difference between taking advantage of people and controlling or annihilating them. The mental state I need to be in is the same regardless. So if I was thinking “I need this persuadable idiot to do more for me” I’d be in the same mental situation of that. That isn’t the case for all people, but it is for me.

Well I was more thinking of shallow people who don’t like you. My point wasn’t so much get them to do lots of stuff and more take the advantages away from whatever they’ve done and leave the negatives.

For what purpose? ^^ I don’t mind letting shallow people have a few benefits. They’ll be pathetic either way, but perhaps they’ll be happier this way. And regardless of what they do, they can’t harm me anyways, no matter how much they dislike me, so I’m not worried or needing to defend myself.

Say if some horrid girl offers to help you with something (like washing dishes) then says they did it because they think your sad and they really hate you.
I’d say well fool you. You helped me out *****, it don’t matter what you think of me, even if you look at me like dirt. You helped out, so fool you.

I’d laugh out loud ^^ If a person underestimates me, that’s foolish of them. Plus, I don’t mind them wasting time thinking about me and hating me, but I have better things to do than care about that.

Although I do get what you’re saying. It’s tempting to do that. But pointless in the end, in my opinion ^^

Oh good. Because I didn’t mean any dominatrix like deal.