This is the Business English Podcast, episode 46, how to respond when a colleague rejects your invitation in English.
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Hey, Michelle. So hey, I'm going to be in New York at the end of the month for a conference.
Can we get together for a coffee on the 25th at noon?
Ooh, Lindsay, I don't think I can make it that weekend.
Oh, okay. No problem. We'll do it another time.
Oh, that's too bad. Oh, you turned me down.
Oh, ouch. Michelle, geez. Okay. Well, today, guys, what are we talking about?
Michelle, what are we going to go into today?
I mean, sometimes we want to extend an invitation to someone and what happens?
They say no. They say no. And the question is, what do we say next?
Right. How could you? No, I'm just joking.
Yeah. You got to be graceful about it. Right.
Yeah. You got to be graceful. And it's also not just to be graceful, also to learn something about the person and whether they like what are their ideas about hanging out with you in the future.
Right. So it's actually a very useful step here in English that we need to know how to do.
Michelle, in your in your social life or professional life, like how do you usually handle these situations?
If somebody says that they can't do something.
Yeah. Like what would you normally say? Oh, that's too bad.
All right. Next time. Yeah. Something like that.
Right. Next time is a very common thing to say.
Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I like this phrase to stick your neck out.
What does that mean? Oh, that means like that you kind of put yourself.
Well, not to use another phrase, but put yourself out there like you kind of in a way, like in a way, when you ask someone to hang out with you, you're like kind of vulnerable.
It depends on your relationship. But like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Yeah. Yep. Yeah, that's true. Well, especially in the dating world, right?
That's especially true. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, big time.
But you know, but in general, you are you're sticking your neck out.
The phrase to stick your neck out means to kind of take a chance.
Okay. Another thing was stick, right? We did an episode about Oh, we did.
Yeah. And we didn't come up with that one, did we?
But there's so many more we could do with stick.
And we'll do it another day. We'll come back to it.
I'm sure. And guys, yeah, the cool thing is we're doing a lot of episodes on this, you know, how to bring the workspace into the social space, like how to invite your colleagues out to work.
We did that episode. That was episode 701.
So you're going to want to review that one first and then come back to this one.
Okay. So go to allearsenglish.com, type in 701.
And this is actually a question from a listener.
So let's see. Michelle, would you read the question?
It's quite short, actually, and basic, but that's okay.
Straight to the point. Okay. Wait, which one is... Where does the listener email start?
So, Eve. Eve is the listener here. And she said... Well, I'll just read it.
It's okay. It's very short. Okay, I can't see it for some reason.
Oh, maybe it didn't copy into the email.
That's okay. So, it says... What to say when you invite someone out... Oh, I see it.
Sorry. Go ahead. So, Eve just asked us the question, right?
So, exactly what we're answering. She said...
Or he rather said, what what should I say when I invite someone out who's a colleague and they turn me down?
OK, that's just the question. All right.
So, Michelle, what would you say first here?
Well, it really depends on the relationship.
Right. So is this like, I mean, a romantic interest or a colleague like Eve said?
I mean, or I mean, who knows? It could be both.
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, it's going to be different depending on who is actually asking you to hang out.
But today we're going to assume that it's a colleague, okay?
And we can do a different episode on a romantic interest or a friend.
You know, we can go into all these niche topics later.
But if you do want one of those situations, guys, you should write a comment in the blog post for this episode and tell us what you want, okay?
Yeah. So there's two reasons to say something when they turn you down, right?
What are the two reasons for that, Michelle?
Of trying to say something when somebody turns you down?
Yeah, like instead of just walking away or kind of like saying nothing.
I mean, yeah, you don't want to just, I mean, you're trying to maintain the connection, right?
So, you know, sometimes you're just like putting out feelers to figure out if they actually want to go out, but they're really just busy or if they don't want to hang out and they're just making an excuse.
Right. And so like basically it's you're going to be able to tell based on how they react to whatever comment you make.
Right. Exactly. So that's why we say those are really the two reasons for like being strategic here, guys, about your comment.
Number one is making maintaining the connection.
Number two is putting out feelers to see what they want to do.
OK. Mm hmm. So I think this applies a little bit more in the dating world because you definitely want to know, like, what are someone's ideas on going out with you?
OK, so that's where it would be even more important.
But, you know, we're talking about connection here.
So it's OK. OK, so what are some things that we can say then, Michelle?
Well, first, I mean, really, you could just say, oh, that's OK.
Maybe we can do it another time or maybe we can do it some other time.
Yeah, exactly. And so if they really want to hang out, they might suggest another time right here.
OK, and this is something to look out for more in the dating world.
Right. But what should we be aware of? Well, if you hear the word sometime without anything specific, right, like, oh, yeah, maybe sometime.
That's not a great sign. Maybe sometime.
Oh, ouch. Ouch, ouch. Especially in American culture.
We talked a few weeks ago about, you know, is the invitation real?
That's an episode we did a long time ago.
You can come back to allearsenglish.com, type in is the invitation real?
But when you're talking to American people, often they're not going to say to your face, no, I don't want to spend any time with you.
Yeah. No, I don't want to. Sorry. They're going to they're going to just go around.
They're going to be very general and something they might use is, yeah, maybe sometime.
I remember there was an episode of Friends.
Who knows? Maybe I spoke about this once.
Do you want to hear? Yeah, I do, actually.
Well, it was one of the early ones and they were like, I think I did say this once, but it just cracks me up.
The group is like, I think Ross is moving and he says to Phoebe, oh, are you going to help come over and help me move tonight?
And she goes, oh, I wish I could, but I don't want to.
And, like, it's just so funny because the reason it's funny is it's just, like, so direct, right?
Like, nobody would actually say that. But she's actually just saying the exact reason.
Like, oh, I wish I could, but I don't want to.
I love that because it really kind of, right there, it kind of defines what comedy is, what good comedy is.
It's voicing what we all are thinking, but we're too afraid to say.
Like, that is comedy right there, right?
Right. Right. So we wouldn't actually say that.
I don't know anyone who would actually say that.
Who knows? But exactly. Exactly. Right. Most people would say, I wish I could, but I have to, you know, I have to study or I have to do this.
I have to do that. That's so funny. Oh, I love friends.
Phoebe's my favorite character lover. Yeah.
Good. So that's the big thing there. Watch out for.
Yeah, maybe sometime or yeah, maybe that's even worse.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Maybe. I mean, maybe it's basically a no, I think.
Yeah. Yeah. In many ways. It depends on the relationship.
But OK, let's move on to number two. What's another thing you could say if the person says they can't hang out with you when you ask them to?
You can just say, no problem. I just thought I'd throw it out there.
Hopefully at some point we can make that happen.
Yeah. Now that sounds a little bit more like assertive and more work like a little more professional to me.
Yeah, I agree. I think if I heard this, yeah, socially, I would think it was like a little weird.
A little bit like trying a little too hard.
Would you agree? Yes, very much so. Yeah, exactly.
Subtleties in the language. It's incredible.
So that one is better. Yeah. Yeah, isn't that interesting?
Although I do have a friend. Well, she's not exactly a great friend anymore because sometimes she was a little too assertive in the friendship world.
She would take phrases that were more... relative to the work world.
And she would kind of use them in the friendship world.
It was kind of strange. So, so she would say something like that.
Hopefully it's some way we can make that happen.
I mean, it's fine. Like, but it's a little bit weird, right?
A little bit weird. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right.
The last one we could say is, okay, well, good luck with, you know, the thing they have to do.
Like good luck with your class or good luck with studying or good luck with whatever it is.
I will see you in the office or I'll talk to you at work.
Okay. Yeah. And that one's kind of good because like once you've invited someone out, one approach that you could do is you could hang back and wait for them to invite you out next time.
Just let it go completely. Okay. And then if they invite you to do something, then you know that they're reciprocating, that they want to hang out.
Okay. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, exactly.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. So let's do a role play, Michelle, and we'll try out some of these.
Here we go. All right, so here we are. We are two colleagues.
Yeah, yeah, cool. Okay. Here we go. Okay.
Hey, Lindsay, we've been working hard this week.
How about we grab a drink after work on Friday?
Oh, Michelle, I'd like to, but I have early dinner plans.
Oh, that's okay. I just thought I'd throw that out there.
Maybe we can do it some other time. Oh, speaking of that, are you free this coming Wednesday after work?
We could swing by that new cocktail bar near work.
Yeah, that sounds great. Let's plan on it.
Okay, cool. Okay, so actually in this roleplay, guys, we forgot to tell you, we're going to do two endings.
Two. It's a two for one. Two for one. You get a two for one discount.
We're going to do ending one where the person actually does want to hang out.
So the person has a counter offer, right?
The person like I suggested another time and that's a great sign, right?
But then we're going to do also ending two where I'm going to react differently.
Okay. So let's try it again. Okay. Here we go.
Hey, Lindsay, we've been working hard this week.
How about we grab a drink after work on Friday?
Oh, Michelle, I'd like to, but I have early dinner plans.
Oh, that's okay. I just thought I'd throw that out there.
Maybe we can do it some other time. Uh, yeah, maybe sometime.
Oh, you weren't even trying to hide it. I gave you the yeah, maybe sometime.
Oh, like, like, oh, that was painful. Oh, don't take it personally.
It's all right. So what we taught today, we can see it in this role play, right?
So again, as we talked about, guys, you should try to say something so you can get a response from the other person so you can feel out what they want.
And in this case, the first situation, I give a counter offer.
I give another suggestion. Okay. And in the second one, what happened, Michelle? you just said uh yeah maybe sometime i mean sometimes i mean it may not be that obvious like with their intonation because they may try be be trying to hide it like maybe they'd say like yeah maybe sometime like yeah i think i was a little too obvious yeah exactly yeah Um, no, but I mean, it could happen like that.
It could happen either way, but yeah. So don't, if somebody says, oh yeah, maybe sometime that's still bad.
Exactly. So don't be fooled. I mean, we tell, we talk about a lot of the show that intonation is so important, but that's the thing here that don't be fooled by the intonation.
In this case, it's really the words they're using.
Right. And that's so sad because I mean, I, you know, I don't want people to think that like I don't know.
This makes me think of I've heard people say like that they think Americans are like a little fake.
Fake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that I mean, I guess in that way, when we say that, like that part is I could understand why someone would say that when we're talking about this topic.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I bet we I wonder if we've done an episode on this.
You know, are Americans fake? We could do that.
That's a big topic. And I struggle with that, too, because in some ways, in some like very superficial ways, we are like this example.
But in other ways, we're not. I mean, OK.
Cultures are all different, right? Exactly.
Yeah. Just when we did this exact thing, it just made me think about, you know, when people say that and like in that certain way, I guess it's true, but it's also this idea of just wanting to be polite.
So anyway, but we'll get it to another time.
Yeah. And I'm not sure that there is an answer because the problem is like when people ask that question, are Americans fake?
We're always going to be interpreting it through our own cultural lens.
So if you're someone in Russia who's saying are Americans fake, you might be saying yes, because you are talking through your cultural lens, your cultural way of seeing the world.
Right. You're not talking objectively like we're never objective.
No one is objective. Right. Okay, so that's the interesting part.
I mean, that's a fascinating topic, Michelle.
I'm glad you brought that up, actually. Yeah, really interesting.
Okay, so what do we want to remember today, Michelle?
Um, well, you know, don't be afraid to invite your colleagues out.
So review, we said episode 701 and learn those phrases, learn these ones and just go make some plans.
Yeah, exactly. And, and don't, don't, don't be afraid.
It's, it is important to respond to if it's a so-called rejection, right?
Respond to that to put out feel your feelers to figure out if you should try inviting the person out again, right?
You want to know where you stand, right?
Right. Or again, as we showed you in this too, you could always just wait for them to invite you out.
Once you've invited them out, it should be reciprocal.
So they should invite you out. Okay. So you can take your pick, but good episode, good social skills, social work skills episode.
And yeah, comes down to connection, right?
It's important to build that connection.
Yes. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Awesome. Well, this is great.
Yeah, very good. Guys, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.
Get 50% off your transcripts if you want them.
Very cool. Okay, Michelle, this has been fun.
I'll see you soon. All right. See you. Bye.
Take care. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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