My mother is a very particular person and because of this there are a lot of restrictions on how she lives her life. I keep running up against situations where I try to accommodate 1,2 or 3 limitations and then end up down the rabbit hole of accommodating 5, 6 or 7 of them instead, and I need wording for how to politely draw a line.
Example 1: if we drive somewhere with a large parking lot, like the grocery store, a movie theater, or the mall, she strongly prefers to park in the spot on the corner of a row so that her car is visible from the building entrance. She says she doesn't feel safe parking further away (even during the day in a good area, etc.) At places that are busy like the mall or target these spots are almost always taken. She will drive around for a while looking for one regardless. She will eventually settle for one 2 or max 3 spaces from the end of the row after passing them 2-3 times,so it might take 15 minutes to park instead of 1 minute.
Example 2: She wears an unusual shoe size because of the width so I offered to help her find shoes for my upcoming wedding. We went to a very large DSW store that unfortunately didn't carry her width, but we did find some brands and styles for her to try on that met most of her criteria. The issue we ran into was that in addition to the width restriction, she also doesn't like: heels narrower than 1" around or higher than 2.5"; open toe shoes; sling back shoes; shoes with buckles on the toe; and shoes that have a heel that is a different color than the shoe. Some of these are comfort related (the heel thickness/height) and the rest are more of a preference. That literally rules out 99.9% of formal shoes that come in her size (I searched exhaustively online on all the major shoe sites, brand sites, google, amazon, etc.). We finally found ONE pair that met her criteria and they are out of stock in her size.
I could list more examples but I think you get the point. She is like this about the kind of TV shows she watches, the technology she will use (basically none), the clothes she wears (her dress for the wedding requires special alterations to meet her criteria, which is fine, but again it was a lot of hemming and hawing from her during the fittings and extra work for the seamstress), the places she will and won't drive to by herself/at night, etc.
I on the other hand like to try new things and at some point tire of always catering to her routine. The same restaurants, the same parking spots, etc. etc. etc.
She writes off her limitations as "being an old lady" but she is not that old, my father is older than her and doesn't have these limits, heck my grandfather in law is pushing 90 and doesn't either. I need a polite phrase that is matter of fact and not me criticizing how she chooses to live her life, while also acknowledging that it can make her a PITA at times. Something like "So options A, B, C and D don't work - maybe we should go shoe shopping/to dinner/etc. another time then." I just have trouble imagining saying that without it sounding like "Well you're just too much effort for me to deal with so go away."
Topic: Catering to the particular person (Read 9547 times)