Just Say What You Want

A few days ago, I got a text from someone I hadn’t heard from in a while. “Hey, how are you? I’ve been thinking about you.” Nice, I thought. Then: “How’s business?” Then: “How are your clients doing?”

I answered. Politely. Because that’s what you do. But I already knew where it was going.

Three days later, I got a follow-up. It looked like a personal update, but the writing had that clear AI-generated rhythm. It announced their new product and said they “just had to share it with me.”

There it was: the ask.

Here’s what bothers me about this, and it’s not that they wanted my business. Everyone wants something from someone at some point. That’s not the problem. The problem is the performance around it: the niceties as a warm-up act. The pretending to care about my week so the actual point lands softer.

My husband deals with the same thing. People reach out with warmth, but it disappears as soon as they get what they want. Somehow, we’ve all just accepted this as normal business behavior.

I don’t buy it. Not anymore.

I spent years in corporate jobs learning how to have hard conversations directly. No extra words, no avoiding the point, no fake warmth to soften a request. Just: here’s what I need, here’s why, is this something you’re open to? It’s not cold or rude. It’s actually more respectful, because it treats the other person as someone who can handle a direct ask without being managed into it.

The irony isn’t lost on me. 

It’s not lost on me that I run a marketing agency. I know exactly why people start with a soft approach. It’s the training: build rapport, warm the lead, don’t make the ask feel like an ask. But there’s a difference between building a real relationship and following a script. People can feel the difference. I could tell within two texts. With the fake warmth comes pre-written, polished, and scaled. A genuine-sounding paragraph generated in three seconds, sent to fifty people who’ll each think it was written just for them. If I wanted to know what your product does, I could ask my own AI to research it and tell me in about the same amount of time it took you to prompt that message. That’s not a flex; it’s just where we are, which makes the performance even more pointless.

Here’s what I’d rather see, and what I try to do myself: just say what you mean. “I just launched something, and I think you’d be interested. Can I send you details?” That’s it. That’s a complete, respectful, honest message. No warm-up. No bait. Just clarity.

It’s 2026. We have more ways to communicate than any generation before us, but somehow it’s harder to be direct. I don’t think authenticity is gone. I think it’s just hidden under too many scripts we’ve confused with good manners.

I’d rather have the harder, honest conversation every time.

Angel, Founder, NThreeQ Media