how to ask and not receive

Lately I've been trying to be smarter about the use of language and words when asking someone a question. How do you ask someone for something without forcing them to say "yes"? Or on the flip side, how can you always get a "yes"? How do you force a positive answer as opposed to a negative one? My overall goal is to give the person I'm asking an equal 50/50 opportunity to say yes or no.

To get a Yes is easy. You can apply guilt, sympathy, and reasonability to convince or even trick a person to say Yes. But to pose a question while providing them with equal opportunity to say yes or no, that's hard.

First things first, always request with a C. Never ask "Would you.." or "Want to.." (or "Wanna"). Can you, Could you? These are the best. It's more direct. Would you? Yeah sure, I would want to but will I? W's are more to see if someone's willing to do something, like as if to ask if they would do it given the proper conditions. But a Could you, that's more direct. Could is asking for capability, and likely if you're capable of something, conditions have been satisfied already.

1. "Can you give me a ride to church?". You'll almost always get a Yes for this one. I personally cannot say No to this. I've gone across town just to get people to church. What if you said "Do you know anyone whocould give me a ride to church?". That would get the person thinking -- who else could they ask? maybe I could help arrange a ride but not necessarily give the ride. I think that's the best way to approach this kind of situation.

2. "Can you spot me?". You forget to bring money and you're at a restaurant or a movie, etc. Unless they don't have money themselves, they're likely to oblige. Personally I hate to owe money because they might forget, and then essentially you got a freebie, and I definitely *will* forget. The alternative is "I need to find a bank or ATM." This gives them an option, to point out a location, or to say don't worry about it and lend them the money.

3. "Can I have this?" or "Can I borrow this?". This is very rare. Not too many people come into my place and ask for things (because I only have crap), but it happens. Best alternative is probably "I was thinking of buying this.. but I'm not sure if it's worth it." This gives the person an option to lend it to you, or to tell you whether or not it's a good buy. You might even get a coupon, or a location where there's a sale for it.

4. Gum. "Can I have a piece of gum?" I don't think I've ever asked for gum and got a No, unless they didn't have any left. How can I ask for gum and give them the option of saying No, even if they have a whole pack left? How bout "Man, my breath stinks. I think I might kill someone if I exhale." No, that definitely wouldn't work. The person might give you their entire pack of gum for that one. Ha!

I think the general idea is to choose the right words. Lately I have been also trying not to make my regular sarcastic remarks because upon reflection I find that although it's all kidding around, I could really offend someone. I know this because I can get offended by things people just say for kicks, just to get a laugh. Even today, I said something to someone as just a question, but then I right when it came out I realized it could be taken as an insult.